Surprises on String Lake Hike

Our planned hike to String Lake and Leigh Lake started on schedule at 11 AM. We went a bit later in the morning since it was cool and we hoped the sun would be warm by the time we started out on the hike. We didn't go more than 100 yards before we met a young couple that had just completed the hike coming from the other direction. They told us about a couple avalanches that occurred on the trail where snow and trees have blocked the trail in some places. We should have heeded their warning, as it turned out to be an experience we will not soon forget.

It started out as a nice, leisurely hike from the trailhead to the west shore:

 

It didn't take long before we ran into some snow along the trail:

That was the easy part. We could follow tracks in the snow to stay on the trail, but then we ran into the real problem - fallen trees. There were two, huge avalanches that occurred during the winter that bowled over hundreds of trees and made the trail nearly impassable:

 

At one point, we thought we lost the trail for good. A lot of time was lost while scrambling to locate the trail but we eventually connected again. There were also many areas where the snow runoff had created flooding on the trail. Here is one area where the runoff was pronounced:

The water was rapidly filling the lake, and it was running over its banks in some areas. It was still a beautiful hike around one of the shallowest lakes in the park. We did get some good shots of the lake, mountains and a few of the canoes that were on the water:

and also of the two areas where the avalanches occurred. This is the first area as seen from the other side of the lake:

and the second area which created the most problems for us:

As we were almost at the end of the hike, we came onto this young deer that was foraging on the side of the trail:

The hike was almost exactly 5 miles, but should have only been in the 4 mile range. All of the extra effort to stay on the trail amounted to an extra mile of walking. It was a hike that we took in July of the first year we were here, and is definitely a late summer hike. The first time a couple years ago we were able to get pictures of many wildflowers, but this time, there were barely any at all. The exercise was a bit more than we planned, but was certainly invigorating.

It's back to work today with the classic auto rally in full swing...