Continental Divide Trail to Jade Lakes

Today is Saturday, August 26, 2017.  We only had three more days here in the playground that is Dubois, the Wind River, the Wind River Range, and the Absaroka Range.  We're starting to get serious about our remaining adventures.

So we decided to take a hike from Brooks Lake, along the Continental Divide Trail, up to Lower Jade Lake and Upper Jade Lake, and back again by a different trail.  A moderate hike of 7 miles, with lots of ups and downs.

Here we are at the trailhead at Brooks Lake:

While this is the Shoshone National Forest, the private Brooks Lake Lodge has a vested interest in providing a quality wilderness experience to their guests, so the lodge has maintained trail improvements, such as the entrance gate at the trailhead, above, and the trail sign below, which shows the way to Upper Brooks Lake, beyond which is Bear Cub Pass and the Yellowstone Trail, part of the Continental Divide Trail.

The Continental Divide National Scenic Trail (CDT) is a United States National Scenic Trail running 3,100 miles between Mexico and Canada. It follows the Continental Divide along the Rocky Mountains and traverses five U.S. states — Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. The trail is a combination of dedicated trails and small roads and considered 70% complete. Portions designated as uncompleted must be traveled by roadwalking on dirt or paved roads. The CDT can be continued north into Canada to Kakwa Lake north of Jasper National Park by the Great Divide Trail.  Only about two hundred people a year attempt to hike the entire trail, taking about six months to complete it.  In northwest Wyoming, the CDT traverses the Wind River Range and the Absaroka Range. The grand finale is Yellowstone National Park where the CDT is routed from Yellowstone's southern back country, to Old Faithful and then exits west to Idaho.

Our good friend Dick Mallery through-hiked the CDT with logistical support from his wife Gaila and their daughter Magda.  We've enjoyed hiking sections of the CDT as we visit different locations in the Rocky Mountains, and this hike made us think of Dick and Gaila.

Here we came to our first trail junction.  David REALLY wanted to hike on to Yellowstone, but Kathy reminded him that we needed to finish the hike today.

The trail wasn't marked for Jade Lakes, but, luckily, we had done some research.  Eventually, after we had already found the lakes, we spotted this ancient, decrepit wooden sign pointing back the way we had come to Jade Lakes:

But we digress.

As we hiked up the  large valley from Brooks Lake, we crossed several small streams, always with Bear Cub Pass in our sights:

A strenuous climb of about 500 feet up in a half mile or so had us turn a corner and - surprise - Lower Jade Lake came into view.  While these photos don't do it justice, Lower Jade Lake earns its name legitimately.  We wanted to tarry, but decided to hike on to Upper Jade Lake for a lunch stop.

Another mile or two and over a ridge, following their common drainage upstream, we arrived at Upper Jade Lake from Lower Jade Lake, and this was our first view at the outlet stream:

Upper Jade Lake presents a stunning view of the granite escarpment known as Brooks Lake Mountain, which also forms the spine of the Continental Divide at Togwotee Pass:

Just in case you didn't appreciate the last photo, David decided to pause for another look after lunch and let you appreciate it again:

While there is no formal loop trail for the Jade Lakes, we found an old road on our GPS map which appeared to track with a trail along and down from Upper Jade Lake, so we decided to hike a loop.  We were glad we did.  On the way down the back slope, we saw much evidence of the volcanic activity that formed the Absaroka Range (in constrast to the upheaval of granite, which formed the Wind River Range).  Here, Kathy is hanging out with her volcanic breccia buddy:

The wildflowers were a riot, as can be seen in some of the photos from this hike.  The colors of late summer wildflowers blended with the yellows, oranges and reds of early fall leaves and flowers.  There were too many to photograph for this blog, but here is a late-color photo of one pretty flower:

Our hike gave us an unannounced bonus - a small alpine pond which, though shallow, was quite pretty:

The bed of the pond showed animal tracks in every direction.  Here were some unidentifiable tracks of an animal that decided to just cross the entire pond:

Hiking over the ridge between Upper Jade Lake and Brooks Lake, and around the ridge, we burst out onto a dramatic alpine meadow leading all the way up to the base of the escarpment:

Hiking yet further back into view of Brooks Lake, we caught sight of our beloved Pinnacles, shining brilliantly behind the lake and across the wetland meadows above the lake.  The meadows, too, were starting to turn early fall colors:

North of the Pinnacles, the valley meadow stretched uphill toward another, unnamed peak:

Our trail led us back to an old cabin we had spotted on our hike up the valley toward the Jade Lakes.  This gave us a chance to inspect it closely.  No longer occupied, it looked as if it had regurgitated its wood stove out into the front lawn.  Kathy sat on the front porch and pondered how time causes the decay of all things:

From the cabin, our trail led us back down to Brooks Lake and our trailhead.  We had expected a shorter, 5-mile hike, so by the time we were done, we had completed a respectable day's walk.

Tomorrow we vary it up with another kayak and fishing trip - this time to Mosquito Lake in the Wind River Range.