Upper Royal Basin Beauty

After our 7 mile hike to Royal Lake, enjoying exploring the lake, and dinner, two of us headed toward the Upper Basin. I was loving the mountain views.

As we hiked up, the stream was so lovely.

There were more flowers to enjoy in the higher meadow.

As we rounded the corner, we saw that the stream was coming right off of this glacier fed waterfall and under a snowfield. We enjoyed this view for quite awhile with amazement.

We headed back down for camp for the night but let the rest of our group know that we must all return in the morning to enjoy this breathtaking area.

On the way down we saw a marmot sunning himself on the rock.

The next morning we all came up again. Looking back we saw the mist still settled over Royal Lake.

 We crossed the little stream coming down from the waterfall and continued up to the next ridge.

The mountains were so amazingly beautiful.

There was still quite a bit of melting snow at this elevation.

At the top of the upper basin we found this little snow melt lake with its pretty reflection.

We continued to enjoy the upper basin with amazement, feeling on top of the world!

We all decided we would like to live here and it was hard to head back down to the lake.

There was a deer with her fawn enjoying the high meadow with us.

We saw several marmots and heard them whistling. This one decided to pose for me! We reluctantly started the mile down to the lake and then hiked the 7 miles back to the trailhead.