Maclean, If you ever get to this part of the world, look me up. I'd gladly take another photographer up to the High Country. Some of the lakes are actually greenish-blue with the "glacial flour", others are the deepest sky blue you'd ever see. My second favorite lake is on the side of Mt Clark and is french blue, heart-shaped, and perfectly nestled there in sheer granite at 11'000. I was on a week-long geography seminar about 25 years ago criss-crossing the Clark Range. Every peak is formed of a different kind of granite. :happy little sigh: The first glacier that John Muir hiked over here in California (and which validated his theory) is up there, and we followed his footsteps for a while... but didn't descend into the Bergshrund. (sp) My absolute favorite lake is very close to Mt Conness (my favorite peak of all the peaks) and is one to which I've brought many friends over the years. The deeper lakes are often too cold for skinny-dipping, but the shallow tarns are just right. We have yellow-bellied marmots and tiny grey pikas. The pikas are quite shy... I'll usually only see these if I've been sitting so still for so long that they have forgotten about me. :) Carolly