Winter visit to Dog Lake and the waterfall on the stream that feeds it

At least once every winter I try to visit the waterfall on the stream that feeds Rainbow Lake (AKA Dog Lake) about twenty miles from here on the Flathead Indian Reservation, and I chose today for this winter’s visit. I included snowshoes with my equipment, but found them to be unnecessary this time: it was one of the areas that received very little of last night’s snow. To my surprise I found instead a brief period of sun and some blue sky!

Visit to a Waterfall

Every year, at some time during winter, I try to visit the waterfall that stands about a quarter mile from the northeast corner of Dog Lake (Rainbow Lake) on the Flathead Indian Reservation. I missed completely last year and for one reason or other didn’t make it this winter until today. Some of the ice still remains despite the warm temperatures, and today the sun was out and the sky was blue. A good day for a visit.

Rainbow Lake

In the old days this lake on the Flathead Indian Reservation was called Dog Lake. I have never understood why the name was changed.

Rainbow Lake; frozen

This is the lake that was so blue in the photos posted a few days ago. Now it is completely frozen over and that surface you see is clear ice. I thought the picture might look good with the WordPress snowflakes

Waterfall at Rainbow Lake

This small waterfall on the Flathead Indian Reservation here in western Montana gets only a few visitors every year. It is on no maps, it has no name, there is not a sign anywhere advertising its existence and even the trail that leads up to it is unmarked. Yet it is not without its own quiet beauty.

Sun and ice

Finally a sunny day. Sunny, not warm; cold, guaranteed by a brisk wind off the ice.

For some time now I’ve been promising myself a trek to an un-named and seldom visited waterfall just above a small lake on the Flathead Reservation a dozen or so miles from my house and a mile or so off the highway. Today I strapped a tripod on my pack just in case the falls were thawed and snowshoes in case the snow was deep and headed for the falls. I didn’t need the tripod. It felt so good to be walking over the deep snow and following wolf tracks besides!

Amazing and wonderful how a falls will change over the seasons. Late in March of 2010 this one looked like this:

Today, this is how it was, the normally clear, clean falls blocked in many places by built-up ice dams:

Some water was still flowing beneath or behind the ice, visible just below the fringe area about in the center of the falls; not easy to get to for a close-up, but intriguing.

I will post more photos of the ice over the next few days.