Today, we did Balsam Mountain.  It was another humid day, but the mountain was mostly leafed out and it was a rather shady trail up.  Overall, it was a lovely hike and the trail was in pretty good shape.  There were a couple muddy spots and a couple blow downs on the trail, but that's par for the course.  The view of the day was about 1/2 mile before the top, and what a lovely view of the valley it was.  Bugs thankfully were not that bad.  A little bit of swarming on the way up, but once spray was re-applied at the overlook, it wasn't a problem on the way down.

Sunday, I went south and did a couple lovely fire towers.  First up was a 2.5 hour drive to Balsam Lake via Beaverkill Rd.  There are 2 ways up this mountain, so you can do it as a lollypop loop.  The trail itself is in rather good shape, and apart from a couple spots of mud and a bit of water on one of the steeper parts, it was a dry trail.  I went up the easy way, going straight when the trail to the tower breaks off to the left.  This took me up a valley between Balsam Lake and Graham and Doubletop mountains (2 of the 35'ers that are on private land and curr