Pando and Fish Lake

Our hotel was right next to the Black Bear Diner in Richfield. The Quality Inn where we stayed wasn't any better or worse than the average Best Western Hotel we've stayed in, but it had the advantage of being right next door to the Black Bear Diner. I was happy to be able to just walk there for dinner. Roger ordered the pot roast dinner to share with me. I just ordered a dinner salad, so we each also had our own salad. We had room left over to order Huckleberry ice cream and a giant bear claw pastry for dessert. It was no time at all to be able to walk back to our room and enjoy an episode of our latest TV series. We even managed to go to sleep around our usual bedtime with plenty of time for me to read in bed as I often do.

The plan for yesterday morning was to drive up to Fishlake National Forest. We planned to stop somewhere to hike along the way, but the ultimate goal was to see Fish Lake itself. I was curious about the cabins they have for rent. I wanted to know if it's a place I'd like to visit in another season. I envisioned we'd at least be able to hike around by the lake. I did not anticipate it would be as cold and as barren as it was. When you're used to temperatures in the forties, the twenties feel mighty cold.

When we were almost to the lake, we saw the Pando, the Aspen Clone Organism. I'd heard about it over the years, and was interested in seeing it. The highway runs right through that area. The gate to a road that runs through some of it was closed, but you can walk around nearby. 

Roger wasn't really interested in getting out of the car, but I walked up and touched a tree.

Then we drove over to Fish Lake, got out of the car, and walked around a bit. We could hear the ice on the lake cracking and popping. While we watched, there was a very loud crack and pop and a huge fissure opened up near where we stood on the shore. You can see it in the first lake picture. There was a guy ice fishing nearby, but he wasn't too close. 

We got back in the car and drove all the way to the north part of the lake. The ice must be thicker there. There were a lot more people ice fishing. They even had tent huts to sit inside. Two little boys were chasing each other around, pushing camping chairs like go carts, spinning, and crashing into each other while laughing. We saw what we thought were a couple of bald eagles flying around, landing in the trees by the lake, then one landed on the ice itself and seemed to be watching the fishing people. It was just too cold to wait around for them to keep flying long enough to get pictures of them. We wished we'd brought binoculars.

Since the Fishlake National Forest didn't really work out for a hike, nor was it warm enough for us to want to wait around until lunch, we decided to head for home. The plan was to stop somewhere along the way toward home.

Once we had cell phone service again (we had none up by the lake), I started an internet search of the area. I was hoping to at least find a nice place to have lunch. We'd told Mariel to expect us sometime between 3 and 5 PM, and it was just after 11 AM, too early to go home. I'll post about where we ended up in the last post about this trip.