The Lightning Lake Trail heads continually uphill, and as it approaches Lightning Lake, it travels through a series of high country meadows abounding with wildflowers, including yarrow, lupine, Indian paintbrush, false dandelion, false burnt dandelion, wild onion, clanging bell, and others we were unable to identify. At the edge of one meadow we stopped for 10 minutes, watching in awe as a bald eagle soared effortlessly above us, circling endlessly, and providing us with entertainment.
Lightning Creek is a lovely creek traveling through some lovely country. The Gallatin National Forest and the American Hiking Society have an ongoing three or four year project (Adopt-A-Trail) to reconstruct the trail. The lower 3 miles or so of the trail are in the Gallatin National Forest, and the upper mileage is within the Lee Metcalf Wilderness. The major use of the trail is by horse users.
Lightning Lake is actually halfway along the length of the trail, allowing you to reach it from two different trailheads (or do a point-to-point hike.) A spur trail (unmaintained and sketchy towards the top) leads off to Alp Lake complex another 800 feet or so higher in the mountains. Both Lightning and Alp Lakes are within the Lee Metcalf Wilderness Area (Taylor-Hilgard unit.)
Another spur trail leaves the Lightning Lake Trail at the crossing of the Taylor Fork of the Gallatin River and travels three miles up to Taylor Falls, a series of cascades through the deep, steep-walled canyon. This photo was taken on my stomach while laying over the edge of the canyon. A brief lightning storm struck as we were up at the falls, forcing us to bushwack down the sidehill to avoid being on the ridgeline. On the hike back down, we spotted a fresh grizzly pawprint superimposed inside one of our bootprints (made when we were hiking up.) We were quite vigilant (and intentionally noisy) as we continued down the back to camp!