Pend d'Oreille Bay Trail at Sandpoint, Idaho

Background

First off, a couple of shots of last night's sunset:

This morning, the weather forecast was for a clear and sunshiny day. But there was a bunch of clouds surrounding us. Perhaps some of them were those pretty ones from last night.

So instead of a really long trek or ride, we decided to walk a trail that we walked a year ago, one that we knew was really easy walking: the Pend d'Oreille Bay Trail. The hope was that if it started raining, we wouldn't be that far from the hotel.

Well, we made it to the turn-around point in complete dryness.

And shortly after we started to return, we felt some wetness. It didn't rain heavily - it was really light, almost (but not quite) non-existent.

Fortunately, a good portion of the trail is in a bit of a rain forest. Once we got into the shelter of the tall trees, the light rain didn't touch us at all!

And by the time we got back to the hotel, a couple of hours after we started, the skies were clear.

After lunch, Stephen went for a bike ride, while I relaxed at the hotel.

The Geography

Here is a Google Earth view showing our hiking track. The hotel is at the southern end of our hike.

And a Google Maps view of the general area.

The hike

The trek was 6.4 kms in total. It was easy walking, essentially flat. Here is a shot of the trail.

At one point, we saw a little trail heading off into the forest (not too far, because there is a really abrupt hill, on top of which runs the BNSF railroad).

One thing that we thought was strange was this tree. It has obviously been cut down for a long time, and yet there are fresh branches and leaves on it. It is obviously getting water and other nutrients from the lake through its trunk instead of from the ground through its roots.

Some views of the lake:

And an interesting and artistic log with a chain on it.

The Flora

Only one flower photo today - a pretty daisy, one of my favorite flowers!

The Fauna

There are piles of geese around our hotel, and piles of goose poop. We could see many families of geese - it looks like the young geese are almost able to fly, but they still follow mom and dad around dutifully. They probably aren't teenagers yet .

Tomorrow

As usual, who knows?