Sand Lakes Quiet Area

I didn't do a whole lot of wandering while I was out there but I got some in. We were out there from mid-afternoon last Monday until about mid-afternoon on Wednesday. It was mostly a good time but there was a lot of stuff getting me down too. I'm trying to let it go.

Mostly pictures today.

I've never seen this before, but my friend saw two while we were out there. Maybe one day I'll figure out what it is.

This looks a lot like chaga, but it isn't on a birch.... I think chaga might grow on some other trees but this was (I think) ironwood. Strange.

Lots of frogs!

Found some tracks while we were out there too. The wet soil around water is obviously a good substrate.

Coyote tracks at Lake No. 3. They were howling a lot in the night, and it's always cool to hear. There were some young ones up, that's for sure.

More, if you can make out the trails.

This looks very canine like but I'm not sure if it is. Only one like it I saw.

On the other hand, there were a lot more like this. I'm not sure if it's the same animal. I foolishly didn't look at the trail pattern, but by the prints I thought it was something in the weasel family.

Inevitably there is bad in everything, and this trip was no exception.

A lot of the trees in our campsite looked like this, and there were several cut down. We found out that our neighbors had been there the previous week and had "fun" throwing axes and knives at the trees. I was really upset about it, especially when I saw them doing the same thing. A few hours of "fun" and these trees look like hell permanently now.

And then there was this. People were shooting fireworks off one lake over at about 2am our first night there. Everyone was mad, which probably goes without saying. And of course they just left their trash.