There are bears at Bear Lake.  In fact, it’s Grizzly bear territory.  What the heck was I doing heading in to a place like that?

Basically, I had to conquer it.  In July 2010, Paul and I hiked into this spot in the pouring rain, through mud up to our ankles, slipping and sliding and reached the top to see. . . . nothing!  It was too stormy to see anything!  There was still snow at the top, the rain was blowing sideways from the strong winds, and the clouds had settled so low that we couldn’t see but 10 feet in front of us.  I remember huddling at the top, standing to eat our sandwiches, and then quickly headed back down the mountain . . . slipping and sliding the whole way down.

Today, a whole new story:

The lake!  So exciting to finally see it!

And this view . . . WOW!

The wind at the top is pretty strong . . . check out the trees!

Here is Paul, posing with his friend, who is “this high”.  Truthfully, I have no idea what he is doing.

Even though we got a late start to the hike, we still had enough daylight left to be able to go around the lake to check things out.  There is an extensive trail system running around the area, and hiking over the ridge you can see in the background, leads to a couple of other lakes and day hikes in the area.  But remember, it’s bear territory, so be careful!

View from the other side of Bear Lake

And we saw these beautiful mountain flowers along the way and I decided to play with my aperture settings.

This is a great day hike to a beautiful spot to fish, and wander around.  I highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a challenge for a short hike.  A new trail has been carved out recently, probably following a game trail and it is fairly steep, but well marked and easy to climb.  The previous trail is said to be 2.5km long, and I would say the new trail is fairly similar.