Saturday, July 18, 2015

Mt Aeneas, Picnic Lakes and wildflowers

Saturday, July 18, Patti, Linda and I hiked to the top of Mt Aeneas then to the Picnic Lakes, both in the Swan Mountain Range's Jewel Basin outside of Bigfork, MT.

We had an elevation gain of about 1811 ft.  Camp Misery is at 5717 ft and Mt. Aeneas is 7528 ft.

We hiked 6.7 miles.



Mt Aeneas is in the background center, as seen from near one of the Picnic Lakes.


It was good we got an early start as we got one of the few parking spots left at the Camp Misery parking lot.  A very large group (18!) of the Swan Rangers were there.  Patti, Linda and I were very glad they were taking a different trail than us.   Here is a link to their page.  They claimed to have broken into smaller groups.    One of their photos shows gaps between the people hiking.  I guess the gaps make it separate groups.,    http://www.swanrange.org/index.php/articles/blog/swan_rangers_hike_jewel_basin1/260


We reached the top of Mt Aeneas around 11 am.  We ate our lunches there then descended to Picnic Lakes where we saw several meadows of wildflowers. After spending a little time at the southern Picnic Lake we hiked up and over the ridge and back down to Patti's car.

A very nice day and hike.

Click on the photo/link to see 23 more photos from the hike:
Mt Aeneas - Picnic Lakes



I had hiked to the top of Mt Aeneas once before, back on June 1, 2007. Most everything was covered under snow then.

http://tallpineshiker.blogspot.com/2007/06/mt-aeneas.html

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