Bench Lake

For my second hike this morning, I drove a short distance east of Reflection Lakes to the Snow Lake Trailhead, hiking to Bench Lake and back: 1.5 miles round trip with about 300 ft of overall gain. View of Mt Rainier looking across the road from the trailhead

This trail goes through forest and open meadows. View across the meadow to Foss Peak and Unicorn Peak, zoom of Unicorn Peak

View of Mt Rainier along the trail

From an overlook looking down at the north end of Bench Lake it didn't look very pretty

Down at the shore of Bench Lake, the view of Mt Rainier reflecting in the lake was gorgeous!

There were only a few wildflowers in bloom along this trail along with some berries:

High Falls at Grand Portage State Park

We drove to Grand Portage State Park in the northwest corner of Minnesota. We did the short hike to High Falls and the shorter trail of the Picnic Path to see the International Boundry Marker and sign about the boundry treaty. View looking across the Pigeon River into Canada

some views along the Pigeon River, with Canada across the river

Views of HIgh Falls from the two view areas

At the end of the Picnic Path was the International Boundry Marker and the sign about the boundry treaty

view along the Picnic Path across the Pigeon River

some of the wildflowers we saw along the trails

Snow Creek Falls

We drove up to th Snow Creek Falls Trailhead near Bonners Ferry Idaho to hike down to see Upper and Lower Snow Creek Falls, about 1.5 miles round trip with 250 ft of loss/gain. We were excited to see a rainbow at the base of Upper Snow Creek Falls this morning

Lower Snow Creek Falls

some of the boulders and moss we saw along this forested hike

some of the wildflowers we saw along the trail today

Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Area

We stopped at the southern end of Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Area near Stevensville Montana to take a lunch break and walk the trails. We only went a short ways on the lower loop as the trail was quite flooded, then went around the upper loop for a total of 1.5 miles. We saw and heard quite a few birds. View where we sat on benches for a lunch break

blurry zoom of some red colored water birds

Great view of the snow capped Bitterroot Mountains across a very full Bitterroot River

zoom of some of those peaks

Where we found the trail flooded and turned around

In the middle of a meadow in the forest along the upper loop, we saw a very large tom turkey, here is my blurry zoom