Escaping The Nutshell

2014-09-07 Thunder Lake from Fan Falls area

At the entrance to Wild Basin, the ranger said "Your cooler, you must hide, or the bears will eat what's inside". We agreed to do so, although it only contained water bottles. There were plenty of places to park near the ranger station, although the militaristic parking coordinators were directing each car to a particular spot, so in an orderly fashion they would fill the lot.

The forecast was for a 20% chance of a thunderstorm, but we ended up enduring four of them, with it raining most of the day.

2014-09-07 Fan Falls

We took the Thunder Lake Trail until the Thunder Lake campsite, then departed the trail, continuing up the wooded moraine, emerging above treeline at a small waterfall and then a pond just west of Fan Falls. From there, we headed west to the pond above Fan Falls. The views here are spectacular, especially of Mt Alice and Chiefs Head. In this area, we came upon a female Pine Grosbeak, who let us take a picture of her, and then sang, before taking off.

2014-09-07 Female pine grosbeak: pinicola enucleator

It was very inviting to continue above treeline, but a thunderstorm moved in, and we decided to head back down, descending on a steep partially wooded slope west of Fan Falls.

From below, we took a picture of Fan Falls, then followed its creek to Thunder Lake. Having lunch at the Thunder Lake cabin, we then returned along the Thunder Lake Trail.

Started hiking at 9:41
Returned to Wild Basin Ranger Station at 17:39
Total time: about 8 hours
Total distance traveled: 12.8 miles
Elevation difference: 11335 - 8543 = 2,792 ft

Tracks for entire hike.

2014-09-07 Elevation profile: Fan Falls - Thunder Lake Loop