The Lura Lakes

The approach to the first lake. This is the second vehicle in our caravan. The man at the hotel said our Mercedes 4-wheel drive vehicle would not make the trip. That should have told us something we needed to know, but of course we took it at face value and all loaded into the appropriate vehicles -- Range Rovers, Land Cruisers -- like I say, it should have told us something.

The first and the lowest in elevation of all the lakes. There are seven lakes that make up the "Lura Lakes" region. It is a national park, but illegal logging has mostly left it barren. The highest one is at about 1600 meters. This one I thought was the prettiest in its present state.

On the walk to the third lake.

The last of the lakes, Lake of Flowers. It has suffered the most from logging because of the silting. In the next two pictures the grassy portion is very boggy. I don't know how long it takes for silted in areas to become "firm" or if they ever do, but this one has a ways to go.

As far as one could see, the remains of a forest. None of this has been replanted, either, and there were no seed trees left to provide natural reseeding. I saw very, very few little new trees coming up anywhere.
A good section of the road. This is on the way way down. Some sections were so bad that one of the ladies got out and walked a hundred yards because she knew the car was going to roll off the side of the mountain. Besnik had to stop several times and roll big rocks off the road that had fallen after we drove up. We all agreed that we would have been better off to have seen the first lake and left the mountain, but now at least we can say we survived.