Twin Lakes

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Twin Lakes reminds me quite a bit of some of the views that Kristen and I saw in New Zealand.

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An amazingly decked out Ford pickup we saw at the boat parking area.

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A lone sailboat moored out on the lake.

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At the upper part of Twin Lakes.

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In the little town of Twin Lakes.  We tried to eat at this place but they were completely full.

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Heading over this road leads to Aspen.

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Twin Lakes Overnight Llama Trip

 

Last weekend my parents, Dmitri, and I went for an overnight training hike with four of our llamas.  This is the second time that three of these llamas had been away from home.  The last time was the previous weekend when we did a day hike to Duffy Lake.

 

 

After loading everyone up with packs and saddles, we headed up the trail toward Twin Lakes in the Jefferson Wilderness.

 

There were lots of downed trees on the trail.  The Forest Service hasn’t made it to this trail to clear it out yet this year.

 

 

 

Very close to Twin Lakes there is a very nice parkland where we decided to make camp.  The meadow has a fair amount of lupine in it but our llamas didn’t touch the poisonous plant.  Instead, they ate all of the young, succulent grass.

 

 

We setup our cooking area on a good flat spot.  This was our first trip with a real table.  It was a nice addition.

 

My tent setup at the edge of the parkland.

 

At this point, Dmitri and I went on a hike up Maxwell Butte.  Photos of that are available in a different post on this blog.

 

 

As the sun sank low in the west, we started a fire and ate our dinner.

 

The next morning.

 

There are many dead trees in the area.  All of the lodgepole pine were killed off several years ago by bark beetles.  Someday this area is going to have a good fire sweep through due to all of the dead standing and fallen timber.

 

 

It was a Quest for Fire morning on the lake.

 

 

Getting ready to head down the trail.

 

On the way down we ran into two people who run the Northwest Hiker website.  They took pictures of our llamas.  I wonder if we will appear on their website soon.

 

 

All the packs are off and put away.  Time to load up the llamas and head home.