Lost Lake Trail

The Lost Lake Trail starts behind Roosevelt Lodge at Tower Junction and forms a loop to walk past the Lost Lake (yeah well, it's not really Lost if we all know about it right?), the petrified tree and back down behind the Roosevelt cabins to the parking area. The hiking mileage came right out at 5 miles.





 With all the rain we've had, the lake was higher and we've heard you might be able to spot a moose along the edges, but maybe in September. We've been told they are still up in the higher mountains.








We saw a Pica which aren't endangered but they are being 'watched' to see if they can adapt to the normally warmer climate change going on. He was a busy little guy and in the weeds so deep, and fast, that the pictures aren't worthy of posting. We saw ducks and a woodpecker also. The large rock area to the left is from volcanic rock.

This is the area leaving the lake and in about 1/2 miles leads to the parking area for a large specimen of a Petrified Tree.

Word is if there wasn't a fence around it that it would be a Petrified Stump due to all the plundering through the years by tourists. I also heard from a Ranger that this whole mountainside is full of pieces of petrified trees. But the policy for Yellowstone is "Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints." 






Here's a killer view! And it looks like we're going to walk off the end of the mountain. Nice trail, hmmm.

Here we are looking down at the Tower/Roosevelt Junction. The main road is the one we came in on from Mammoth. The road leading to the left goes out to Lamar Valley and ultimately the northeast entrance and Cooke City.

We had to crawl over one large tree that fell and here's one that was cut after it fell to clear the path. There was a major fire in 1988 that burned over 60% of the forests and there are trees all over that didn't make it. We've seen several large stands of dead trees that are huge but still standing.

Here is the path going down. It's still another good mile to the parking lot. With close paths like these, it's good to have longer pants on :)

Hiking mileage total: 48