The Road to Hell....s Canyon Wilderness

One cool EARLY August morning Chuck and I set off on the trail to Hell...


Via Seven Devils that is.


Chuck had assured me that there wouldn't be much of an elevation change
as the topographic map indicated the lakes were pretty close in elevation range.

I was a "bit" skeptical when the 1st thousand feet was down.

We spent the next three days going repeatedly
up and down
multiple times,
thousands of feet.
(The red line indicates just one day's trek).

However-
In the process we saw incredible mountains,

lush meadows,

growing things,

deep blue lakes,

And perhaps

more varieties

of flowers

in bloom

than on any

other outing

we have ever been on... I know I take a lot of flower photos... But seriously... Which ones should I leave out?

These Indian paintbrush

were just feet away from a snowbank.

I was SOOO excited when on the hike in,
we caught sight of a mountain goat about 3oo yards away.

I got this photo with my zoom.
The only other mtn goat in the wild I had ever seen
was a distant black speck across a valley.
So this was a big deal for me. It was prime mountain goat country.

After a long haul with a heavy pack- up and down- that first day
we set up camp by this stream complete with flowering "something".

We have been working on getting our packs lighter,
(we're not getting any younger ya know...)

So we got this tent...

It's smaller than it looks.

It was a great base camp. We spent three days, hiked close to 27 miles,

had a nice encounter at this lake. . .

With this little guy...

And his mama.

And even though she was eating "something" from a campsite.
I was ecstatic to be less than 25 feet from a wild goat for the first time.
(besides Chuck that is).

There was a junction in-between valleys and lakes ,
and ups and downs.

The farthest "up" we got was at Sheep Lake.

And after hiking up FOREVER...
we had to go DOWN to get to it...

which meant we had to go UP to get back out...

It was worth it though,
because guess what?!

Yep! More goats!

He was a good looking goat in spite of his shaggy backside.

After three days we packed up and headed up and down,

and up and down and finally up and out.

We loaded the car up and went to the fire look out.
Yes.
There was a little bit of a hike up to get to it.
We saw the big view of the area we had just been in.

It wasn't really the trail to hell- but it sure was memorable and fun.