The weekend of 13 Jul 07, Tracy and I decided to check out the Sawtooth Wilderness in Idaho.

We had never been up there, and we figured it was time we checked it out.  We hiked the Alice

Lake Trail (Google Map), starting from Pettit Lake.  We were planning on hiking the full 17 mile

loop around Lake Toxaway, but the heat completely zapped us, and we only hiked the 6.5

miles to Twin Lakes.  The trailhead was pretty crowded, but we really didn't see a whole lot of

people on the way in.  The hike up was some of the best switchbacks I've ever hiked...I barely

noticed the elevation gain.  Alice Lake was absolutely beautiful...the mountains around it were

surprisingly pretty considering their low elevation.  There weren't a lot of campsites around

Alice, though, so we pressed on to Twin Lakes.  Twin was really pretty, too, and we had it

completely to ourselves...we didn't see a single soul all evening and all night...which was

surprising considering how crowded the trailhead was.  The heat had caused us to drink all of

our water, though, and I hadn't brought the filter since it was just an overnighter.  So we had to

boil some water to make it back the next day...good times!  The hike out the next day was

pretty crowded.  The last three miles we ran into lots and lots of people.  Most of them seemed

to be wearing their fresh-off-the-shelf Eddie Bauer clothes from Sun Valley and most seemed ill

prepared for the 90-plus temperatures they were going to encounter that day.  But the most

interesting thing we saw (besides the girl wearing her Hooter's outfit), was an American

Marten.  To be honest, we only THINK it was a Marten, because neither one of us knew what it

was we saw, and after sifting through enature.com, we're pretty sure it was a Marten.  It was

really cool, though.  It looked like a really big squirrel or a small fox, but it was running away

from us, unlike a squirrel, and it hopped up on a low branch of a tree, unlike a fox.  Other than

that, we just had a nice hike.  Tracy really liked it out there, but I felt like it was a little too

crowded, a little too far away, and a little too low in elevation to be worth driving to from Salt

Lake on any regular basis.