Wouldn't you expect to find strawberries on Strawberry Mountain?

We're camping in Prairie City, Idaho, and we've come here specifically to take a hike in the Strawberry Mountain Range. Wouldn't you expect to find strawberries on Strawberry Mountain?

Actually, Mark read that huckleberries grow on this mountain, and that makes sense to what we know about huckleberries. They only grow at elevations of 4,000 to 6,000 feet, and they love steep hillsides in forested areas. When we found a nice patch of berries a half-mile into our hike, we marked the spot with a stick in that stump. We'll be back!

We also learned that there are many different kinds of huckleberries. When we found a tiny plant with tiny berries further on the trail, we think these are one of those other kinds. We think that harvesting these tiny berries would be crazy tedious!

Many people stop 1.4 miles into this hike when they get to Strawberry Lake. It's a nice destination, with a mountain on this side,

and another mountain in the distance on the other side. 

Wouldn't you expect to find strawberries at Strawberry Lake? But instead we found some very sweet raspberries that Denisa picked for a nice morning snack.

But why would we stop hiking, when Strawberry Falls is only 1.4 mile further down the trail?

We got up early this morning for our hike, so we had the lake and now the waterfall all to ourselves.

Wouldn't you expect to find strawberries at Strawberry Falls? But we didn't. What we did find were some lovely flowers . . .

and a butterfly enjoying the moist environment around the falls.

Strawberry Falls would make a nice destination, but why would we stop hiking when Little Strawberry Lake is only another 0.6-miles up the trail?

The sun was just peeking over the the mountain peaks this morning when we got to this lake mirroring the craggly-topped mountains. We have wandered into another of God's wonders this morning.

Wouldn't you expect to find strawberries at Little Strawberry Lake? We didn't. But we did find some nice trout swimming in the clear water.

When we looked toward the mountain tops, we could see a flower garden, just waiting to be explored. So we headed up without a trail to help us.

What a beautiful combination of spring wildflowers here in the mountains of Idaho!

Of all the lovely plants we found at Little Strawberry Lake, can you believe that we didn't find any strawberry plants!?!

We did find these royal blue flowers that Denisa noted as her favorites for the day.

We had read that mountain sheep sometimes hang around Little Strawberry Lake, but we only found some of their shed winter wool among the flowers.

Little Strawberry Lake would be a great destination, but why would we stop when Strawberry Peak is just 2.7 miles further up the trail? Wait a minute! We might be crazy hikers, but we know our limits. Instead of continuing further up the mountain, we're heading back down the trail.

That's because we have huckleberries to pick!

We went back to an area that we "marked" earlier, and started picking. We've managed to find wild huckleberries several times before, so we have some experience at finding and picking these little fruits. They look very much like a blueberry, but they are more purple and we think they taste better. Because they usually grow on steep mountain-sides, Denisa's strategy is to sit among the bushes, and pick from this comfortable position.

On the other hand, Mark bends over and reaches for berries. While he still managed to get some huckleberry stains on his hiking pants,

we can safely say that Denisa got more stains.

Their different picking techniques yield about the same amount of huckleberry staining to the hands.

We came prepared with bags and containers for picking today. After an hour and twenty minutes, this was our harvest.

Even though it was pleasantly cool in the mountains, when we got back to our motor home in the prairie the temperature was in the 90's. We turned on the air-conditioner and started our huckleberry projects. First we washed and cleaned out any stems and leaves and blossom ends. Then we lay the berries out to dry for a while before we froze some of them in quart bags.

The rest were used to make a batch of huckleberry freezer jam. That's really fresh jam when they go from the huckleberry bush to the freezer in just a few hours!

The rest of the evening was spent doing laundry--including the clothes that we wore to pick berries. 

It took some pre-treating and lots of scrubbing, but we are glad to report that both of our pants no longer have purple stains! Wouldn't you expect to find strawberry stains after a day on Strawberry Mountain?