Jewel Basin

I was having some issues uploading these pictures yesterday. I got it figured out, so now we can get on with the program.

We hiked in Jewel Basin on Thursday. Brian's looking at the map as we begin the hike. We took went on several different trails making one 8 mile long hike. The first part was strenuous, which it was. It was uphill most of the time with switchbacks. We took lots of short rest breaks!
Me posing on a rest/camera break. Most of the time we rested we also took a few (ie, lots) of pictures. Total for the day was 215 which included a few duplicates.

At this point, we're only about a quarter of a mile into the hike. But everything was so pretty and picturesque; we thought we had to stop to take pictures of everything!

Since it was just us on the hike, we had to do a few self portraits so we could have some pictures of us together. Since Brian is tall and therefore has long(er) arms, it worked out pretty well!

Flathead Lake is the big lake in the distance. Kalispell is in Flathead County and there are lots of "flathead" things around here. Flathead Lake and the valley was dug by glaciers and is approximately 50 feet deep.

The tip of Mt. Aeneas is to the left of Brian's head. We stopped at a nice, flat area to eat lunch before finishing the hike. While eating, seven goats appeared over the hill. We had fun watching them and taking pictures. They were very close, but just enjoying their grazing and play time.

Continuing on our hike, we ran into another bunch of goat. These were sitting very close to the top of the mountatin. We actually had to divert our path just a bit as one of the big guys was laying on the path.

So glad to have finally made it to the top!

The view was beautiful and we were glad we toughed out the hard parts and made it. Well worth the strenuous hike!

On our way down, there was a big rock along the path. Brian sat on the ground and got me in the picture with Mt. Aeneas in the background.

Putting our feet in Picnic Lakes. It was very chilly. Brian thought it was refreshing!

Taking a rest at Twin Lakes. It was a nice peaceful setting to sit and enjoy the scenery.

Twin Lakes. Very interesting to watch the wind blow the water around, yet we couldn't feel the wind that we could see.

On Noisy Cross Path on the way back to our car. You can see my hair is blowing quite a bit. The path name is true! At points it was very loud because of the wind blowing through the two mountain peaks we were hiking though.

Along the way we enjoyed beautiful vegitatation like this Indian Paintbrush (red) and purple Aster. It was a great hike and great first day in Kalispell!