The trail to Deadhorse Lake is about eight miles from the official trailhead, which is about 3.5 miles from the major stream crossing.  2/3's of the trail is fairly flat allowing very fast and easy hiking.

Oh yeah - pictures - I took five rolls of 36, two Provia 100 and two Kodak EVS100, of which the latter I pushed to 200 (works really well).

It took about 45 minutes from the Smiths Fork trail crossing to reach the official trailhead.  The road traverses the river again just before the car park.  I needed to change into my Tevas to cross.  It was not deep, maybe 5 inches, but it was freezing!

The trail begins at the sign-in register, going through an opening in the fence, and continues a hundred or so yards on the west side of the river.  A few minutes later you cross the wilderness boundary.  From here the view is spectacular, with Tokewanna Peak looming above and to the east.  I continued along this well-worn trail for several miles and began to get a "funny feeling" that I had lost the actual trail.  My maps indicated that the trail at this point had crossed the river - but I had not seen any sign of a bridge or a trail split.  I continued for another mile or two then decided to cross, finding a narrow area to jump across.  Sure enough, the real trail was on the east side.  To this day I have NO IDEA how I lost it.

At about the seventh mile the trail began climbing, continuing the steep(er) pitch for the last three miles.  The last 1/2 mile is steep.  By this time I was exhausted.  When at the lake at about 4pm, I found a good campsite on the north shore.  There are several good ones on this side.  The other sides do not offer much in the way of camping.  If it is crowded, which this area apparently can get (probably on weekends), you can make your way northwesterly above treeline to Ejod Lake.  This is a small lake, more like a pond, and looked as if it would harbor a NYC-sized mosquito population.  It is over tree-line which could prove to be interesting in bad weather.  The view though might make it worth it.

I was so tired that I crawled into my tent and did not emerge until after 7:30pm.  The exhaustion and elevation gain had taken its toll.  This trail begins at 9,400 feet at the first crossing and ends at about 10,900 at Deadhorse Lake.  This 1,500 feet was grueling toward the end, but I think the original 10,000 foot gain from St. Paul from the previous day was the real culprit.

The lighting at this time was a mix of great and cloud-blocked.  I was able to get some really good ones that evening, in fact, several I would consider my best ever.  The evening had two aspects that made for killer photos - 1) there was an impressive alpenglow display and 2) major storm clouds moved in around 8:40 that created some of the best photography conditions I have ever seen.  I was able to capitalize on this with six or so great slides.  If I had more knowledge, better equipment, and was not woozy from the altitude, perhaps I'd have gotten more.