Terrific Hike Around String Lake

We were blessed with a perfect day to take on our first hike of the season. The high temperature for the day was in the mid 70's and the sun was shining brightly. We started out from the RV at 9 AM, and were on the trailhead by 10 AM. This is the hike where we ran into the remains of the avalanche a couple years ago and we were not sure what we would run into this year. It was still early in the season and there visible signs of snow just about everywhere.

We took many photos of our hike and it was difficult to select the ones for this post. But, below are some of the best.

Starting out with our first view of the String Lake from the start:

We immediately saw a couple starting out in their kayak on the lake:

The snow runoff had already created areas along the way where it was flooded over some of the trail. This shot shows one area where the water level forced us off the main path:

We took some nice pictures of the lake as we hiked over a bridge around the south end and onto the west side of the Lake:

The description of the hike in the hiking book we had described it as an easy hike with an elevation change of only 40 feet. They missed the mark on both descriptions. It must have been at least a 150 foot change in elevation and we would describe it as "moderate" as some areas were fairly steep:

Josie stopped on several occasions to take some shots of these early wildflowers along the way:

It is probably another week or two away from seeing the full effects of the wildflowers.

Here are shots of some of the snow that we ran into along the way:

The area where we ran into the avalanche a couple years ago was, for the most part, clear this year. Thank goodness for that. There was lots of water from the runoff all along the western side of the lake. This is one photo of some of the runoff that created small streams all along the way:

This shot shows the heavy flow of water between String Lake and the adjoining lake - Leigh Lake:

As we reached the east side of the lake again to complete our hike, we took more shots of different views of the Tetons:

Our hike concluded at around 1 PM and it was a terrific way to start our hiking season. We plan to take another one next week, at a different location.

Josie snapped this shot of the scenery as we drove back to our RV:

It was a wonderful way to spend a day off in this beautiful area...