Lake Louise, FitzPatrick Wilderness

We drove to the end of Trail Lake Road in the Shoshone National Forest near Dubois Wyoming to hike up to Lake Louise in the Fitzpatrick Wilderness, a 5 mile round trip hike with 1,000 ft of overall gain. This is a beautiful trail to a gorgeous lake, we enjoyed the views and the fall colors.

Viewsfrom the parking area looking towards where the trail will go.

Beginning of the trail: 

Another view of where the trail will go

We enjoyed the colorful mountains along the trail.

The trail soon enters the Fitzpatrick Wilderness.

The trail goes from steep ups, to level, to down and up and level and repeat many times.

The fall colors added accents of beauty along the way.

One of the steep up sections of the trail.

More fall colors as we continue up the trail:

Torrey Creek flowing downhill near the lake outlet

Mountain views as we continue up near the lake.

First view of Lake Louise

A little further along the trail:

We found a nice spot to sit and eat our lunch while enjoying the view.

By the lake shore

Near the outlet of the lake

Views as we hiked back down the trail:

Close to the end of the trail, we went a very short ways along the Glacier Trail to this bridge over Torrey Creek. 

From the bridge looking upstream at the waterfall

From the bridge looking downstream 

some of the wildflowers and fall color we saw along the trail today:

 

 

Island Lake to Beauty Lake

We drove up the Beartooth Highway from Red Lodge Montana over Beartooth Pass to Island Lake Campground Area. From here we hiked to Beauty Lake and back, about 6+ miles round trip with around 400 ft of overall elevation gain. This trail starts at 9,500+ ft, so we hiked nice and slow. View from Island Lake, the trail starts in Shoshone National Forest.

zoom of the mountains across Beauty Lake

There were a couple of signs on the highway, telling us we were in Grizzly County and a few informational signs at the trailhead and this one along the trail.

View from the outlet at Island Lake

We were happy to be hiking up here this morning as the road had been closed over the weekend due to snow.

There was some fall color along the trail.

From the far end of Beauty Lake

After Island Lake, the trail enters High Lakes Wilderness Study Area and goes by Night Lake.

There are several more small lakes along the trail.

There are reports of a mother grizzly with cubs in this area, and were seen by hikers here last night. We saw many bear prints in the mud.

More lakes along the trail.

The trail drops down to Beauty Lake and we had a small snow field to cross.

Beauty Lake

Wide angle view of Beauty Lake

creek above Beauty Lake

Photos of the various lakes on our return hike.