22 August 2017, Tuesday

Basin Campground and hike to Gertrude Lake

We spend the morning cooking up our cardamom coffee cake while O reorganizes his daypack. Meanwhile, I get out trail snacks. After breakfast we drive (slowly) up a very rough forest service road to the trailhead for Gertrude Lake. It is already 12:15 when we begin our hike. Much of the forest on the ridges here was burned in a fire several years ago. (We estimate maybe 5-6 years ago based on the new growth.) From a distance the ridge we are hiking looks black and gray and white due to burned tree trunks and white and gray rock, but among the burned trees there is a profusion of color. There are purple, white, yellow and red flowers and the green of grasses and young aspen and lodge pole pine.

We hike up the switchbacks over the ridge and then follow the trail as it climbs along Timberline Creek. At times the trail comes close to the bounding mountain stream. Shortly after the split between the Bear Creek Trail and the Timberline Trail, the forest becomes green again.

We proceed upwards and finally reach Gertrude Lake, a pretty alpine lake with surrounding high, glacially carved ridges, some still with snow pack on top. We eat our lunch sitting in the sunshine on a log in the surrounding meadow.

Too soon, it is time to descend. The downward trip from the meadow, which is at an elevation of 9500 feet, goes more quickly than the climb, but we do not arrive back at Vincent until 6:30 pm. By the time we drive back to camp, cook dinner and clean up it is 9 pm and we are more than ready for bed.

Birds seen on hike: juncos, robins, song sparrow, bluebird, Clarke’s nutcracker, and a grouse slowly crossing the forest road in front of Vincent as we drive back to camp.