Upper Bench Lakes
6/9/2021: Bench Lakes Trail is a long hike that goes along Redfish Lake and ends at the Bench Lakes. You go through alpine forest and into the Sawtooth Wilderness. The Bench Lakes are beautiful and the wildflowers and birds you see and hear along the way make it easy to put one foot in front of the other along the trail.
Cushion Phlox
Marg’s Notes: Bench Lakes Trail. Headed out at Rush Hour again but made it to the trail & started hiking at 9:40. Again uphill most of the way in. Lots more wildflowers for Rod to take pictures of. Mostly through forests with some alpine meadows. Quite a bit of horse poop on the trail 😝. A very nice hike. Elevation gain of 1,214 ft. 8.67 miles and took us 3 hours & 48 minutes. It was nice that it was downhill the way out! There were beautiful views of the Sawtooth Mountains. There are 2 Bench Lakes. We went to the second one and found a nice spot right on the lake for lunch. Our return trip was pretty fast. We met 2 groups of people on horses with guides. There were showers near the trailhead at Redfish Lake. There is a lodge there. It is a nice place on the lake. There was a snack bar near the lake. Nice cabins too. Campgrounds were pretty full.
Lasagna & salad for dinner.
More notes: There are several campgrounds and a lodge around Redfish Lake. Here is a very good website that will tell you about the campgrounds. Here is some information regarding the entire Redfish Lake Recreation Complex, to include fees.
On today’s adventure, we got about as close as one can get to the very beginning headwaters of the Salmon River, which is one of the longest free-flowing rivers in the world. That is pretty cool. Here is a poor video showing those headwaters. (Note that I say it is the longest. That is not true. My bad.)