Goose & Trio Lakes: On Tuesday, June 24th I drove over Hoodoo Pass and down into Idaho in the afternoon and camped near the trailhead to Goose Creek, trail #414 to get an early start. This is a little day use area that has a vault toilet and tables; and is at the confluence of Goose & Lake Creeks. A couple Forest Service employees showed up later and were camping for the night, they were cutting hazard trees up by Fish Lake. Told some stories over a couple beers and watermelon. I was up early and was on the trail by 715. The goal for the day was to find the horse trail over to the Steep Lakes, I was told where to find it by someone reputable. At the 3.5 mile mark I was passed by a couple young guys doing trail work. They were hiking to Goose Lake and then working their way back cutting out the trail; wouldn't have downed trees to navigate on the way out.
I arrived at the point where the trail is supposed to take off and found that there was still snow in the trees, which muddied the waters on where the trail actually was. I ended up not pushing to find the trail as I expected there would be more snow, so will try again later in the summer. My alternate plan for the day was to try to visit all 3 Trio Lakes and headed in that direction. At Goose Lake, I ran into a couple gals (Michelle Wheeler Little & Dawn Whittington) backpacking the standard Fish Creek Loop. This is starting at the Clearwater Crossing, hiking the North Fork trail, then south along the state line, then down the West Fork back to the Crossing; about 30 miles more or less. In chatting, I found that Michelle grew up in the Tarkio Area and went to school in Superior and Dawn was a friend from the military.
I then headed over into the Montana and headed to the Upper Trio Lake. My plan was to hike cross country to the Middle Trio and then down to the Lower Trio. I cooked lunch, well boiled water, filtered more water and changed socks. At this point I was starting to feel the day and time was ticking; it was past noon and I still had over 7 miles back to the truck. I decided to forego the cross country part and headed by trail to the Lower Trio. I didn't spend much time there and it was back on the trail. I got back to the truck after 5 and home just past 9 pm. For the day I hiked 15.2 miles; visited 3 lakes; and consumed oatmeal, 2 bananas, 2 energy bars, 2 GU packets, cheese, freeze dried meal, some jerky, gorp and a packet of Applesauce. I drank almost 3 liters of water and about 2 liters of electrolyte drinks. The last couple miles were just a forced march.
Pear Lake: On Sunday, Kathy, Skye & I headed to a little lake called Pear Lake on the Montana side of the ID/MT border. We accessed the lake via the trailhead near Cooper Pass outside of Wallace. The road over Cooper Pass connects to the road leading to Thompson Pass from Thompson Falls. You may also access the lake from Thompson Pass. The trail gains over 700 feet in about a mile which includes 16 switchbacks, then a series of rollers before dropping around 300 feet into the lake itself, for a total of 2.25 miles. It is a nice little lake shaped of course like a pear. It was a very nice day to get out for a hike. The trail was in really good shape. The trail on the stateline ridge is open to motorcycles but didn't see any that day. This is the second visit to this lake in June (6th & 29th), quite a difference from June 6th. Had the lake to ourselves while we were there, but we could hear a group coming over from the Blossom Lakes just as we were leaving.
