Let's Just Go Somewhere: A big trees and lake hike

We spent much of the weekend catching up on things...like catching up on the blog, catching up on the laundry, and catching up on getting groceries. By Monday, we were ready for another hike.

We had been told by a couple of different people that the Trail of the Cedars and Avalanche Lake were beautiful hikes so we decided to do both.

The Trail of the Cedars is an 8/10 mile boardwalk loop right off Going to the Sun Road. The trailhead is located where the construction started and well before the road starts ascending up towards Logan's Pass. Again, the parking was challenging, but we found a spot across the street and walked to the trailhead.

Trail of the Cedars is known for its very big cedar trees.

I mean real BIG.

The Trail of the Cedars was handicap-accessible over boardwalks...

and paved asphalt.

And did I mention that the cedar trees were very BIG?

About halfway around the Trail of the Cedars loop, we reached the trailhead for Avalanche Lake and started hiking up that trail. There seemed to be a lot of trees down in the forest here.

And the trail wandered by a stream.

The force of the creek had cut out a gorge here too.

This rock had been unusually shaped by the force of the waters over years and years.

We hiked around big boulders...

...and beside a clear blue stream.

We walked by this nature-made by-pass from the main stream.

I'm guessing this big cedar tree must be a recent fall because it is still green.

There were ferns here and there.

When we stopped to rest a few minutes,

a fellow hiker told us an interesting story he had just heard a ranger tell a group of people where we were stopped to rest. He said, "You see that saddle up there?"

"There was a lot of snow up there and it slid off the mountain like an avalanche. The concussion (or wind) from the fall was so great, that it caused a lot of trees to be blown down."

After passing through the "tree-fall" area, the ground in the forest on the hill was covered in moss.

And then just a little further, we reached Avalanche Lake.

Several other people were there too.

We walked a little further around the lake. Like the rest of the lakes, rivers, and streams in Glacier, Avalanche Lake is clear blue too.

We looked at the lake for a little while and then headed back down the trail. When we reached Trail of the Cedars again, we continued around the boardwalk loop and could see the gorge cut out by Avalanche Creek a little better.