We're both getting really full of fresh fruits and vegetables on this one hour drive, but we can't waste it! So we keep eating as Mark drives us closer to the border. Harvest is just being finished as we get our last views of the mountains behind the wheat fields in southern British Columbia.
We rounded the last curve towards the Kingsgate border crossing and found ourselves in a very long line this Sunday afternoon.
It took us 40 minutes to get close to the customs building, where we saw that only one of the three lanes was open this weekend. Perhaps that was the reason for the long line? We had heard stories of people having their motor homes searched, and Denisa had cleaned out the refrigerator in anticipation of the crossing guards coming on board. But the man at the booth asked only two questions, "How long have you been in Canada?" and "Do you have any food, fruits or vegetables to declare?" Mark answered "Six weeks" and "No" and he welcomed us back to the United States. We're glad we didn't have to "declare" all the fruit in our stomach. We think that eating all that food was a good idea as it gave us an easy border crossing.
Just a few feet down the highway, we got our official "Welcome to the United States of America" and "Welcome to Idaho" both on the same sign. Woo-hoo! We've missed this country!
We drove thirty more minutes to the town of Bonner's Ferry, where we decided to boondock in the casino parking lot. The main reason to visit here comes from a conversation we had with a campground neighbor two years ago. He said they had moose come right up to their house near Bonner's Ferry. In fact, they showed us a picture of the moose drinking out of a kiddie pool on their deck. Denisa has been thinking about that picture for the last two years, and so we are in search of the moose of Bonner's Ferry. The obvious place to look is the Kootenai National Wildlife Refuge. It's six miles out of town, and their brochure has a picture of a moose on the front. But when we arrived, we found that the wildlife loop at the refuge is closed for renovation. In fact, the only thing open at the refuge right now is a short hike to Myrtle Falls.
We took the hike, and then we were given the bad news. We were told that the population of moose in this area has really declined, and the chance of seeing a moose is quite low. We were disappointed about our moose, but we were given some great advice for the best hike in the area. It actually took a 45-minute drive on a very rough forest service road to get to the trail head.
But we finally arrived at the Roman Lakes trail head and studied the map to see where we were heading today. We actually have three lakes on this hike, and based on all the zig-zag red trail lines, we can also look forward to a lot of switch-backs and elevation gain.
The first lake was easy. In fact, it was a very level boardwalk the entire way from the parking lot. You can see the end of the boardwalk in the bottom right hand corner of the picture below. That makes it one of the highest mountain lakes that is handicap-accessible that we have ever seen.
Now without a level boardwalk, we are heading straight up for more mountain-top views here in Idaho.
These are the Selkirk mountains, with peaks that are still below the tree line. There are mountain views as far as we can see from this stone out-cropping.
We are sharing this view with our wildlife sighting of the day. We agree with you that it's not quite as impressive as the moose we were hoping for.
We often get confused between ground squirrels and chipmunks. With a close-up view like this we know this is a ground squirrel. A chipmunk would have a stripes on the side of his face.
It looks like this hike is going to be slower than usual as Denisa has figured out that most of the bushes lining our trail are huckleberry bushes. So she is having to stop and inspect, and occasionally finds a berry to eat.
Even with this slower pace, an hour into the hike we arrive at the Lower Lake.
When you see a log across water, you can safely predict that Mark will be walking it. Where Denisa avoids such feats of balance, Mark looks for them. All the practice probably explains why he is so much better at it.
After a few pictures, we were back on the trail towards the third lake. We have to say that Upper Lake would get our vote for the prettiest of the three lakes.
Mark has found a huge rock face to sit on high above the blue-green water of Upper Lake.
The water is clear enough to see the big boulders that continue down the shore line. This was a peaceful place to stop and enjoy a snack--until a shot range out from the surrounding mountains. We're not sure what hunting season has started already, but the serenity of the Upper Lake was shattered when we considered that we had wandered into a hunting zone.
We love a good loop trail, and we had new scenery as we looped back towards our car. Everywhere we looked, we saw huckleberry bushes lining the trail. But they had no berries on them.
More huckleberry bushes were clinging to the rock that Mark is perched on overlooking the first lake. But they had no berries on them.
The leaves are starting to turn red on the huckleberry bushes, and they make a lovely picture with the green trees and the blue skies. But they had no berries on them.
As we're heading downhill towards the car, we spotted a rogue huckleberry bush just covered with berries. After all her searching, Denisa finally has some Idaho huckleberries! She stayed right there until she picked that bush clean.
We learned about huckleberries on our trip thru the northwest two years ago, and we love these little berries! These weren't as big or as plentiful as the gallons we picked in 2017, but they made a nice trail snack today.
This hike might just make our list of top hikes of the year. It had several things we like in a hike--it was a loop, it had three destinations so we always had something to look forward to, and it finished with a few huckleberries. It's nice to be back hiking in the United States, even if we didn't find our moose here in Bonner's Ferry.
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