Today I was invited to hike with a friend through a section of forest land (640 acres) that is owned by a friend of hers and which he has logged, selectively and carefully, since the 1940’s. It is my opinion that he really knew what he was doing.
Yesterday a friend and I hiked to Cabin Lake, one of the many cirque lakes in the Cube Iron/Silcox roadless area in the Plains/Thompson Falls District of the Lolo National Forest here in western Montana. Following are photos of the trail and, of course, the lake itself which sits at about 6,000 feet.
The destination, Cabin Lake
In several places along the road to the trail head, which follows the west fork of Thompson River, it was necessary to build retaining walls to keep the rock slides from covering the road.
At the trail head, this bridge for foot and horse traffic spans the stream that issues from the lake. It is very welcome because the stream would be very difficult to ford.
Along the bottom part of the trail it is covered by the golden leaves of Black cottonwoods; the “Yellow brick road”.
A smaller stream which is fortunately fordable without going over the top of hiking boots crosses the trail.
The lake sits in a glacier-formed recession just above and to the right of the cliffs in the background.
From the middle part of the trail you can see the mountainside that slopes down to the trail head.
The trail tops out in a saddle, then descends down to the lake which sits just below the peak in the distance.
This and the remaining photos are of the lake itself.
The KooKooSint trail (USFS trail 445) starts about a mile north of the junction of the Thompson River road and Montana Highway 200 and makes its way up to the top of the western end of KooKooSint Ridge. In about two miles of hiking through eleven switchbacks on the primitive, rocky and rugged foot trail you climb about 2,000 feet to the ridge top from which this photo was taken looking to the east over the Clark Fork of the Columbia River. Somewhere near this point was where the Copper King fire started this past summer.
