Hot Dogs

Today I took Walter and his mother Ruby out for a little adventure. It was really too hot to do much hiking so our goal was just to mess around in the mountains for a bit. I drove over to Idaho and we checked out the trailhead for Marie Creek. There were some people on horses and Ruby started barking at them so we did not even get out of the car. Sometimes she is a total drama queen.

Then I headed to the other side of I-90 and drove around Beauty Bay and into the hills. I wanted to see if I could find the Mt. Coeur d' Alene picnic area and see how close I could get to the top of the mountain in the car. My old trail guide says there are views from the summit and where the old lookout is, but I am thinking the forest has reclaimed the views. We saw plenty on the road up to the picnic area, but none on the trail. There is about a half mile trail from the picnic area to the lookout. I was expecting a lookout on stilts way up in the air but what I found was a shack on the ground that the forest is also reclaiming. I guess at one point in the not too distant past there were no trees there and the view was all open. It was a nice little stroll though, but it was really too hot to be out hiking. The temp this week has been over 100 or in the high 90's. I am not sure what it was today but I was drenched and the dogs were panting like crazy. Basically it was really fucking hot.

I have been on the Caribou Ridge portion of the trail that connects to the picnic area from the other side of the road, but I never made it all the way to the top. I was darn close to the picnic area but turned around because it was getting dark. We were also having a lot of fires and the smoke was pretty bad. The Caribou Ridge trail starts at the Beauty Bay Campground that I have a post of from June of 2006.

I thought that the top of the mountain would have a nice beautiful view of the lake and surrounding area but it was too grown over to see anything. I was quite dissapointed in that even though I had only walked about a half mile to to the top. I think that if I would have bushed whacked I could have found some views but it was too hot and sticky to get myself in the thick of leaves and branches.

So after finding the top of the mountain and the lookout cabin that only looked into the nearest bush, we turned around and headed back to the car. The drive down from the mountain is long and dusty but we stopped to take some photos and dick around some more.

I am not sure what the next few weeks holds. The new Harry Potter book is coming out on the 21st and there goes that weekend and the heat and fire danger sort of dictate what we do. Until the next mountain...

PS I think Voldemort is really a euphamism for Dick Cheney. I saw a bumper sticker that said, "Republicans for Voldemort." Like, no shit.

Pictures from top to bottom: Walter and his Mama Ruby at the trailhead (Walter is in the back and Ruby is in the front...yeah, she is grey and he is black...and we just found out this week that Walter's daddy died at the age of 13 from cancer...I am really sad about it.; the trail that heads up from the picnic area; a spot along the trail; the lookout cabin on the top of the mountain; a nice view from the road on the way down of Wolf Lodge Bay; looking towards Cd'A and Hagadon's Erections...errr...I mean...resorts...