This is on the first days' hike looking back down the hill.  You start at the floor of the valley and climb to a crook between to mountains where there is a nice meadow, or you can continue on around the mountain and get to another meadow with a really nice creek next to it, or you could go all the way to the top of Carribou mountian - but that's a pretty good hike for you first day out.  This was taken about 2/3's of the way to the first valley.
 
 

Carribou Lake.  This in in a large bowl that contains 2 large lakes that empty into a smaller one that then empties into another larger one.  The mountain in the background is Sawtooth.  Most years there is still ice floating on this lake in early August.
 

This is looking down at the lower laker from the middle lake.  This is taken from about where we normally pitch our tent.

This is the little lake next to which we normally camp.

And finally, sunset on the lower lake.  On a good night you can count upwards of 9 or 10 mountain ranges in the background before they haze together.

The Map
This is an almost complete map of the Caribou Trail in the Trinity Alps.  Why everything is called Caribou this, and Caribou that is not because there used to be huge heards of the critters running around up here, but rather an old timer who named this area really like Caribou and away he named.... or so I was told.

You will notice the trail is marked in orange and the camp spots are marked in green.  We start by parking the car in the upper right corner at Big Flat Campground.  You are well advised to clean anything out of your car that smells as the bear are known for ripping open a car to get at the contents inside.  After a quick march down to the river, you start the hike of by trying to cross it without getting your feet soaked.  Once across you have to ways to get to Caribou Meadows.  The route on the left is the old trail - much steeper at the end, but a heck of allot shorter.  The new trial on the right is less steep, but about a mile longer - take your pick!  Once at Caribou Meadows, you can bed down here for the night.  There is a freindly heard of deer here, and little chance of running into a beer this night.  There is also more than enough firewood at this sight.  The only problem is water.  We have yet to get up there and not find any, however it is a bit of a walk to it back down the old trail to where the spring comes out.  About 8 years ago my scout troop at the time hiked in a pvc pipe and dug it into place to help with the water flowing out of the spring.  If you are adventourous, you can continue up the trail, however after a good 5 mile uphill hike on your first day out, many are more then anxious to bed down here for night.  The next site is around the hill at Browns Meadow.  A truly wonderfull spot to camp.  You can either camp right off the trail net to the creek, or camp further toward the mountain - very private but you have to walk a few more steps for water.  Wood here is a bit more scare, but still fairly easy to find.  Your other options are either to continue up the old trail to the top of Caribou Mountian where the is an actual spot to camp, however it is trully a gruel of a hike uphill and once at the top there is no water anywhere.  The views from up here though more than make up for the work to get to the top and the lack of water.  Next to the top of Sawtooth, this is by far one of the best spots in the Alps.  About halfway up the old trail to the top you can see Little Caribou Lake.  There is camping here, but you have to go off the trail to get to it.  Once there you trully are on your own.  We believe the best route to the lake however, is not from the old trail, but rather from the new trail where it goeas around the bend before going down into Browns Meadow.  Perhaps this year we'll leave the packs behind at Caribou Meadows and take off and see if we can find a route up to the lake and camp there a night.  From Browns meadow you have a good hike uphill and then pretty much flat out along the edge of the cliff all the way into the lakes.  From the top of Caribou Mountain it's a downhill run straight to the lakes.  Once there there are plenty of spots to camp at all the lakes depending on your choice of scenery, fishing preferances, and lake size.  We prefer to camp at the green dot at the tip of Lower Caribou Lake, although there are a couple of really nice and secluded sites at the upper Caribou Lake.  Here we normally spend 2 days before tackling Sawtooth.  Sawtooth is the most spactacular views around, with +/-96 switchbacks down the mountain.  You try to make sure that you get an early start becuase the other sideof the mountain is bare shale and red rock.  The trail gets dusty, the rocks are loose, and the sun is beating down.... There have been people who died trying to come up this trail rather than down it.  At the very bottom of the trail there is a creek and a campsite that is really nice.  If you feel up to it there are some more nice spots up at the first lake - Emerald.  Feeding into Emerald Lake are two more lakes off the map.  The upper most is pretty much inaccessible, although the middle one looks quite nice.  The only trouble is timing the hike to the water level of Emerald.  The trail to the middle lake is carved out of the rock and is at the edge of the water.  Many times of the year the trail is submerged under 3 or 4 feet of water making the trip immpossible unless you want to swim with your pack.  After spending 2 more days hanging around here, you head down the valley.  Along the way there are 2 more spots to camp at the edge of the creek.  You must be carefull along this valley as there are bear here.  We have run across them several times in our trips up here, including once meeting momma and her cub.  After passing through a meadow in the lower part of the valley it's time to climb back up the mountain.  This time, there are no switchbacks - it's a straight uphill climb.  At about 3/4 of the way up is a wonderfull clearing that makes for a nice campsite.  The problems are however it is a bit of a treck to get water, and there is an old mining cave that the bears use for hibernation.  I've personally had a run-in with a bear in this meadow as it rushed me.  Lucky for me it vered off at the last minute.  If you camp here, you really need to have someone stay up all night and do a bear watch.  We once decided to try hiking from the bottom of Sawtooth all the way out to the Big Flat.  We started at 8:00am, and finished at around 10:30pm.  It's about a 25 mile hike in one day.  Not the funnest thing to do, but it can be done.  Once you start the hike out, be carefull not to take the wrong path.  The trail can be confusing, and there are several that go up to Josephine Lake, and there are more that head correctly to the Flat.  We know it's an easy mistake, we made it one year and met some really nice loggers up there who were kind enough to give us a ride out.  Well that's it - an 8 to 9 day hike with lots of rest days and time to putz around - Jon

so... was the download worth it???  :)