Flathead from Space

If you look real close you can see where I live. Ok... maybe you can't exactly see my house, but you get the idea of the terrain in my neck of the woods.

I live in generally near the center of the photo. I can find close to where I live as I can pick out the Whitefish River that flows from Whitefish Lake to join with the Flathead River before the pronounced meander of the Flathead River above Flathead Lake.

The photo was taken from the space shuttle. It shows the Flathead Valley - which is mainly the brown in the center. The green are mountains with the brown at the outer edges being mountain tops with no trees. Everything looks so flat from outer space.

Hwy 2 can be seen curving from the upper right and almost approaching the lower end of Lake McDonald, Hwy 2 then goes in a curving manner to the lower left, below Little Bitterroot Lake.

For where I have been hiking recently near Joyce's ranch, go NW of the NW part of Flathead Lake. The location is about halfway between Flathead Lake and Hwy 2 (closer to hwy 2), and west/SW of the top of the meander of Flathead River before it enters the lake (and halfway to the clouds).

Not all the area's lakes are listed. For example, Lake Blaine, a smallish lake, can be seen above the Flathead River meander. Echo Lake is to the right of the meander.

This image is courtesy of the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center. (http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov)

Here you can find Foys Lake NW of the top of Flathead Lake. Foys Lake is the small light blue/green oval just below the brown valley. Go about an inch SW of Foys Lake (into the darker green) and this is the general area of my recent hiking trips.

From space it is hard to tell that Flathead Lake is 30 miles long, and almost 15 miles across at its widest point.

Click on the images to get larger views.