Palisade Falls...then on to Emerald Lake

Bright and early we headed out to our first day hiking in Hyalite.  We chose to head up to see Palisade first while the sun was low.  The trail is handicap accessible (paved the entire length) and heavily travelled.  Thankfully we had the place all to ourselves for quite some time before the invasion of the Thing People and a herd of munchkins.  The area is covered n lava rock and the face of the falls seems to be composed of stacked columns of lava.  Quite a bit of water was dropping the 200+ feet to the bottom.  Our camp hosts mentioned an accident the previous weekend when someone fell down the falls injuring himself pretty badly…no idea why you’d decided to climb such steep walls. 

Top of Palisade Falls



Nine working VW Things...Amazing!

Before we got to our car we passed a large group of people heading up the trail…almost as if a tour bus had arrived.  Weird.  As we approached the parking area we notice a large number of ‘special’ cars…all were painted in different colors and looked better than original.  We realized that the large group was actually a car club and their car was the VW Thing…pretty awesome.  Bright colors and not a ding, dent or rust in sight.  Talking with one of the enthusiasts who seemed to the one tagged to watch over their processions he mentioned the last one imported to the USA was in 1974.  We had seen one earlier in Bozeman, but none as nice as these.   A green Thing even had a couple of special bumper stickers.  Maybe our oldest could take note of these...especially so since he now is a part owner in a race car.



Zero to Thirty and Green fuzzy meat



VW Things

 

Start of Emerald Lake Trail

Since our first hike (1.5 miles) was so short and sweet we decided to try and kill ourselves on the second hike of the day…4.5 miles out to Emerald Lake.  It started out fine and the path went up through a pine forest.  Quite a number of mountain bikers were on the trail…maybe that was a clue?  A few hikers passed and a crew of dirt bikes roared up the mountainside as well.  We kept going well past out 2 hour self-imposed time frame.  Swatting and killing untold millions of horse flies and plain old everyday ones…okay not millions, but a very large number.  If you stopped you were at their mercy…thankfully these guys were slow and even Cooper got his revenge on a number of them.

Cooling footsies

Stalk Mode

Cooper enjoyed himself trotting ahead and finding the creek to cool off his toes.  He even managed not to lay down in the various mud puddles he found along the way…though we did encourage the avoidance.  We wondered how much further…it went on and on until the trail finally broke out into open meadows full of wild flowers.  By this time half of us just wanted it to be over…not enjoying the uphill hiking AT ALL, but refused to turn back before she reached Emerald Lake.  It had to be close, right?

What's that I smell?

 

Log bridge

Another 30 minutes to go...

Almost there...

Emerald Lake

Darn flies!

If you're not the lead dog the view never changes

Cooper crosses the log bridge

Rest break

Cooling off our water bottles

 

Open meadow...no bears though

Three hours later we reached the lake…spent 5 minutes scarfing down a granola bar and a slug of water before we couldn’t take it anymore.  The mosquitoes and flies were driving us and poor Coop crazy.  All that way and we spent only 5 minutes enjoying the accomplishment.   The downhill went a bit more quickly…no stopping since the flies were just as bad and Cooper wanted supper.  He was on a mission and not even the ground squirrels could interfere with dinner. 

Once we made it to camp a shower and dinner were the top priorities.  Have we mentioned we can now have a shower while camping?  Last summer we’d seen a few Shower/Utility tent setups…add a solar shower bag (or in our case boil some hot water on the stove) and we’ve been able to get a shower whenever we want or need one.  It is far better than a baby wipe bath.  Our first 10+ hike of the summer and we could still walk normally…a good day.

Trail to Emerald Lake