We started this morning at church in Lander, Wyoming, at the little church where the Gillygirls were helping with the worship service. We met them and their parents and grandmother last night at their performance in the park, and we really enjoyed listening to them again this morning. They are two sets of twins, born after their parents adopted them as frozen embryos. Such a powerful story and such good music!
After church, we headed down Sinks Canyon Road south of Lander. This canyon is the home of Sinks Canyon State Park, where the roaring river that formed this canyon suddenly "sinks" into this cave and disappears.
We took the walk down past the state park visitor center to witness the roaring river sinking out of sight into the cave right below Denisa. But don't worry, it will rise again about a half-mile down stream at "the rise."
Our next stop is the trailhead for the Popo Agie Falls. We are hiking up-river with the Popo Agie River far below us. This is the same river that we just watched disappear, but it is roaring down this canyon in plain sight now. Can you see Denisa in the top left corner of the picture, high above the river?
It's called the Falls trail, because there is more than just one waterfall. After two miles of hiking, we arrived at the first waterfall. Denisa found a nice tree stump chair to take a rest.
Actually, from her special chair she could see one fall to her left, one to the right, another at the very top of the mountain in between them, and a fourth hidden in the trees in the middle. We have found the multiple falls on this trail.
Any one of the falls would have made a nice hike destination. Mark enjoyed this one from his perch on the right.
Then there was this waterfall further upriver as we climbed further. Nice!
But this was our favorite waterfall closer to the top. It had a nice seating area, just right for the entertainment.
The entertainment is the line of people that will slide off that almost vertical slippery rock surface down into the cool water below the falls. It is a plunge that take lots of courage, as we watched a couple people chicken out when they got to the ledge.
Denisa chickened out without looking down that ledge. Mark thought about taking the plunge, but he didn't have his water shoes, and he had his glasses on, and he didn't have a towel . . . He must be getting old to think of so many excuses.
We took a little different route on our return trip to get some taller views over the river.
From this view, Denisa can see most of the waterfalls at once. She can also see that today we are missing the blue skies that we love. The smoke from the fires out west has blown into central Wyoming, and the views are hazy and the skies are smoky gray today. We can't smell smoke, but it has changed the views in Popo Agie Canyon.
But the views at our feet are still nice and clear. Denisa loves these dainty Mariposa lilies that we rarely see.
We can also see these butterflies that are enjoying the yellow wildflowers on the trail.
After our four-mile trail, we are back in the pickup continuing the drive south. Our paved road goes up switchbacks and gains elevation quickly. We have come to Lander on the advice of fellow hikers who raved about the beauty of the Wind River mountains. But we're afraid they are going to be hidden in the smoke for our visit today. We stopped at Frye Lake to eat our picnic lunch. Even though it was a great place to cool off our feet, we decided it wasn't the lake we wanted to kayak on today.
We climbed higher into the mountains as our paved highway turned into a dirt road. We stopped by Worthen Meadow Reservoir. Even though it was lovely, with smoky mountains behind it, we decided not to kayak here.
When we got to Fiddlers Lake, with its many lily pads, we decided that this was our kayaking lake for this Sunday.
These yellow lilies are blooming everywhere. What a beautiful place to kayak!
It's hard to tell how big those lily pads are, so Denisa picked one out of the water. They are bigger than a dinner platter!
Besides all those pretty flowers, we can see a duck standing on a log at the edge of the water.
But wait, she has one baby duck that just hopped up on that log beside her.
No, she definitely has two ducklings!
When they all finally popped up on the log, we saw that she had six baby ducks! She paraded them around the edge of the lake as if she was showing them off.
As cute and fuzzy as little baby ducks are, it's certainly hard to take a clear picture of one. Their down is so fuzzy that the picture always looks fuzzy.
We found two more ducks on Fiddler Lake, and we hope our friend Mary helps us to identify them.
This is one of the most wildlife-filled mountain lakes we have seen in a while. Besides all the plants and birds, we also see a lodge on the water that looks like something lives here as well.
Fiddler's Lake was so much fun that we decided to strap our kayak onto the back of the pickup, and transport it to the fourth lake on this road. Even though it's getting rather late, we drove to Louis Lake and launched our Sea Eagle kayak onto this bigger lake. The water was so still, it was mirroring the mountains and trees that surrounded the lake.
Louis Lake is bordered by grass on one edge, so we pointed our kayak in that direction.
We followed some of the grassy inlets, towards those smoky mountain tops in the distance.
Louis Lake doesn't have any lily pads or baby ducks, but it does have the tallest pink elephant plants we have ever seen.
Speaking of pink, the whole sky is turning a smoky pink color as the sun is dipping behind the mountains that surround the lake. As pretty as the weather and the water are, we've got to get this boat out of the water before it gets dark!
No comments:
Post a Comment