BUT, the good news is not many people go there. Unlike Yellowstone, the density of tourists is much lower, and mostly nearby folks. Hardly a Californian to be seen, except Carole.
The mountains are well named with a fractal edging on the ridge tops competitors for jaggedness. We hiked into the mountains on several days and located stunning waterfalls. You won't see those in my pictures as they are the most difficult waterfalls to photograph or view. One usually walks up to the base of a great falls and, there you are (or one is), facing a roaring torrent of white water, hurling brickbats of water bouquets over the cliff. At least the names are creative compared to Yellowstone (Upper and Lower Falls).
Lady Face Falls is hidden so we missed it; walked right past on our way to Bridal Veil Falls. Bridal Veil cascades a quarter mile over the mountainside, but the view area for it is amidst a grove of brush where glimpses are possible, but the full view never available at once. We settled for a longer view in the shade of some pines where we ate lunch. Other frustrated hikers told us of Lady Face Falls and we found it was neither in our trip description nor on the map. We found the side trail and proceeded to the brink of the falls where this great yawning crack envelopes the small river. The edge is steep and rounded, but not sheer, so it is most dangerous to approach and impossible to see more than the water dropping away. The sounds were good! The fool hanging to the tree declared the view "awesome!"
The cloud in the photo above looks like poor photography, but it simply faded out to fairy dust on the right side.
Thunderheads threatened and boomed away, but we were unsullied walking in the Sawtooths, Sawteeth? A quick dash from the visitor's center to the truck dumped all the rain we missed in a couple minutes. Better there than five miles from shelter.
Goat Falls, another destination hike. This one Carole picked out and we found the trail more strenuous than the Bridal Veil trail. We hoped the falls to be more cooperative to viewing. It was not! At the end of the trail, it dropped precipitously through a field of moving scree so it looked more like erosion than trail. Carole, being less certain about diminishing trails, sent me out to scout to see if indeed any falls was in the vicinity as we were neither hearing nor seeing evidence of such. I scrambled down and came to a spectacular falls, no doubt named for animal one must emulate to see the waterworks. I panted back up the sliding mess and reported it was good, but not good enough for risking the necessary descent.
We gave up on Goat Falls and sat again under the trees (Doug Fir) looking at an unnamed falls on the opposing ridge that was quite handsome, but distant. We met a family of three + dog looking for some lake unknown to us. After consulting our various maps we all decided they took a wrong turn at the beginning of the hike. To be honest, I thought this poor navigating but I received my comeuppance a day later when I made the same mistake! Careful about judging others! Ha!
Often the riffraff are separated from the posh paying Inn-mates, but here you can see they are not. All these people arrive to gather in front of the Redfish Lake Lodge for water sports, sunbathing, boating, water skiing, beer drinking and hot dog eating.This is the most crowded spot in the SNRA. The resort lodges was directly behind when I shot the photo above. The resort labels the nice lounge chairs to keep out itinerants like me, alas it doesn't work. Here's their story: http://www.redfishlake.com/ I didn't see the usual riffraffy crowd in any of their photos.
Lodgepole pine covers a vast portion of the Wyoming, Montana and Idaho landscape we visited this past summer. Here you see them put to good use as fence to frame tourist photos!
1 comment:
Are you riffraff or trailer trash? Does it matter? Nice pictures. Good stories. I prefer the saw teeth to the yellow stone. Idaho, you say. Might need to break out my map.
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