Monday June 30, 15.3mi/24.6km

Priest Lake State Park (958.7/2470ft) to Fault Lake (943.4/6080ft) (ID)

I packed up my camp early, and walked back into the campground before 7am. The store wasn’t open yet so I enjoyed a quick swim, the water wasn’t that cold.

After drying off and warming up under the hand dryers in the bathroom, I walked over to the camp store and picked up a few snacks, as well as some breakfast ice cream.

It’s all homemade ice cream and they have a local flavor called huckleberry cheesecake, so of course that was my selection. After consuming oodles of calories, I left the campground and had a paved roadwalk for an hour. I was relieved to turn onto a dirt logging road.

The road was slowly climbing toward the next mountain range, so after an hour I had a pretty good view back towards Priest Lake.

It was a hot day, but fortunately the roadwalk was mostly in the shade of tall pine trees, and an uneventful 3 hours passed by.

At 3pm I came to the end of the road, and much to my surprise, it immediately ended at a field of talus.

It was quite a shocking transition, going from the easiest walking surface to one of the hardest ones. And at times the talus got a little steep as I climbed up towards Hunt Lake.

It was a little less than a mile of talus, but it took me 45 minutes, even with some of the nice herd paths that circumvented the talus. But finally I arrived at Hunt Lake.

It was a nice spot for a break, and I sat on a big sunny boulder and had some salty snacks. At this high elevation of almost 6,000 ft it was a little chilly. My next task was to hike around the lake, and then up and over a pass at the far end. The lakeshore still had some sizable snowfields remaining, so it wasn’t easy.

I had to hike up and over the snowfields, since an accidental slide down them would send me straight into the icy waters of the lake. But it was straightforward and pretty soon I was at the far end of the lake.

Next there was an 800 vertical foot climb up to a pass, which was complicated by the remaining snowfields. Normally there is a herdpath straight up the creek drainage, that was hidden under some soft snow.

So I scrambled up some granite slabs for a while, which worked really well. Pretty soon I was high above the lake. I thought I had avoided all the snow but the last tiny bit before the top of the pass had a low angle snowfield, so I just hiked right up it.

Even the top of the pass had a little cornice that hadn’t melted yet.

The day was getting late, so I hurried off the pass and down into the next drainage. It was a very scenic little swampy area, and it was surprisingly easy walking through the short grass, even if I got my feet a little wet.

After cresting another minor pass, I could see down to my destination at Fault Lake.

Most of the snow was gone from this side of the pass, and I descended through big fields of yellow flowers.

As I got closer to Fault Lake, both the mosquitoes and the views increased.

I hiked right down to the surface of the lake so I could feel the water, it was probably in the high 30s.

There were a couple small icebergs floating in the far end, so that’s probably not surprising. It was quite damp down by the lake, so I setup my tent on a rocky outcropping.

After I set up my tent I noticed another couple had arrived and setup their camp on the opposite bank. I went over to say hi and they were pretty friendly, and even invited me for a swim. I was skeptical that they were serious, but they impressed me as they both jumped in the lake off of a low boulder. I was a little jealous of their resistance to the cold, as I love swimming but I hate being cold. Then promptly at 7pm, the mosquitoes reported to work, and I went and hid in my tent while making dinner and getting ready for bed.