Redfish Lake Inlet Wildflowers & Waterfalls
Saturday June 21st, 2003

A chilly Sawtooth morning greeted us at Redfish Lake on the Summer Solstice. We took the boat shuttle across to Redfish Inlet and meandered with botanist Michael Mancuso among granite and a damp forest of trees, shrubs and flowers. Some highlights were seeing coral-leaf and rattlesnake orchids. Species of huckleberries and heath were plentiful, too, though many were yet to bloom, due to the late, cold spring. Retired forester Cliff Keene told us about mountain pine beetle and how many lodgepole pines on the Sawtooth Forest are turning red and dying from the current bug infestation. Nearly dizzy from trying to remember all species we had seen, some of our group hiked back on the Bench Lakes trail, while the rest gratefully took the 5-mile boat ride and headed to the lodge for dinner. (Postscript – the next day, the first day of summer, it snowed several inches in Stanley and the Sawtooth Mountains!)

For more information, email us.