Leo Lake Clearwater National Forest, Idaho Lolo National Forest, Montana

Taking off to go to Leo Lake. Should be about a five-ish mile hike with the last part being off trail to get to Lake. We were back in the Bitterroots and the Great Burn. Leo Lake was rumored to be one of the most remote places in the area. There was no official trail to the lake so we'd be doing some route finding on this trip. We appear to have missed a trail and we're almost to Kid Lake so we're gonna backtrack up to this flat spot and see if we can locate the state line trail I guess. I believe we are on track now. We just went through a little meadow back there. The trail we were on just disappeared. We know that this was going to be a bushwhack at some point anyway so we're just starting it now. Since we were going to be doing a bit of cross-country traveling on this trip I was thankful for the terrain we were in. It was pretty easy walking. Well I'm not a hundred percent sure but I think we found the trail again. Pretty faint. We'll take it though. Been a pretty fun adventure. Been tough going. Kind of rough terrain. Spectacular country though. We ended up linking up with the trail that took us right to the lake. I'm not sure what I had made Leo Lake out to be in my mind but I was blown away just how beautiful it was. There weren't many campsite options but we settled down in a nice one. With good views all around we hoped that we would get a nice sunset. Well good morning from Leo Lake. Morning of day two. I need to talk to Andy. Not sure what the plan is today but we're definitely going to enjoy this lake for a while before we do anything. Really cool spot. Most of the morning we relaxed around camp. It seemed to us that the rocks and cliffs around the lake looked like prime mountain goat country. We were watching the ridges all morning trying to see one. I finally spotted something moving on the cliffs above our camp. Luckily Andy was ready with the camera. Andy and I are planning on day hiking up into that upper basin up there. From looking at the map I knew there was some kind of lake or a pond on the other side of the saddle. It was steep going but we decided we would go all the way up there and check it out. The view was well worth the climb. So we've walked around this no name I'm calling it a lake. Right now we're in Montana. We're going to work our way over to the other side of the lake where the border is and we're going to sit up there for a bit. Well good morning from Leo Lake. Day three. Going home day. Beer day. This place has been just awesome. That upper lake that we hiked up to yesterday was incredible. Really a gem. This is just a gem. Lounge around here probably not too much and pack up and start the adventure hike back. I'm actually looking forward to this hike. It's going to be fun. Well we're just pulling out of Leo Lake. This place was really awesome. So the challenge we only got about I'll call it six miles maybe. If we stay on track the trick is going to be staying on trail. Other than that we got one good climb but a lot of rolling climbs. Yeah we got to head over to that far peak right there in the middle. Well maybe that trail on the right was the Kelly Creek trail. The trail's getting a little harder to find. The easy part of the day is done. Now we gotta climb that ridge right there, skirt around the west side and go back north and one more uphill. Then it's all downhill back to the truck and the beer. The first part of the hike we had no trouble staying on the trail. We were cruising along. Well we've kind of lost the trail we were on. This is a great hike. Coming back we had a general idea of what the terrain was like and so we thought we wouldn't have any problem finding our way along. We ended up climbing a bit higher than we needed to but the views were worth it. Well we've been off the trail for quite a while. We just need to get up into the saddle but we can't seem to find the trail we came in on. We'll figure it out though. Found the trail just a little ways back now. There's beer in the truck. We've linked back up with the main trail. Home stretch now for sure.