Distance: 1.5 miles to Glacier Lake, 3.5 miles to Crescent Lake, and 4.3 miles to Heart Lake. We hiked to all three lakes for a total of 9 miles of hiking.
Beginning elevation: 5,160 ft Ending elevation: 6,164 ft Heart Lake Elevation gain: 1,004 ft
The trail is in the Mission Mountains Wilderness.
Directions: From Highway 83 south of mile marker 38, turn west onto Kraft Creek Rd also called Forest
Service Road #561. Continue for 11.5 miles to the trailhead at the end of the road. The road is well maintained.
Trail Description: Follow Trail 690 as though heading to Glacier Lake through mature forest. In less than one mile you will approach the junction of Trail 690 and Trail 742. Stay right on Trail 690 and start heading up eight switchbacks to the upper trail junction.
At switchback #5, there is a rock outcropping that offers outstanding views looking down on Glacier Lake and surrounding peak.
At the upper trail junction of 690 and 708, stay right on 690 and follow through dense forest and huckleberry
patches to Crescent Lake. From Crescent Lake take in the views of the surrounding mountains and continue on up to Heart Lake.
Here is a satellite view where I drew our guesstimated hiking route.
The trailhead parking lot was full of cars. Most cars had a "4" license plate for Missoula county". Some people were camping at Crescent and Heart lakes. No camping is allowed near Glacier Lake. I don't know if people were camping at Turquoise Lake.
There were lots of huckleberries along the trail. While it appeared many of the bushes had been picked clean, there were still lots of bushes loaded with huckleberries. We stopped several times to pick and eat huckleberries.
We ate our lunch at Crescent Lake on a large rock overlooking the lake. My personal favorite lake was Heart Lake and next time I would eat lunch there as it is only .8 mile more to reach the lake. And Heart Lake has more areas along the lake at which to eat lunch and have a good view.
A few photos...
 |
| Glacier Lake |
 |
| Glacier Lake as seen from the rock outcropping at switchback #5. |
 |
| Crescent Lake |
 |
| Heart Lake |
At Heart Lake I followed a trail along the lake to the red X seen in the photo below. I was trying to get to the rock to the right of of the red X. The trail disappeared past the smaller rocks along the lake left of center. I tried to continue where it looked like other people had done. By the time I reached the large rock in the center of the photo the ground was steep. Past the rock the ground was so steep I quit. The rock to the right of the red X had water flowing on or though it and I wanted to see it.
During our hike back to the trailhead it rained lightly off and on.
For more photos follow this link:
https://plus.google.com/photos/109566462412251958234/albums/6050255244666699137?authkey=CP_Kh_ammbbCnwE
No comments:
Post a Comment