We left right after having lunch at summer school and headed out to Kamas and up about 8 miles onto Mirror Lake highway. That turned out the be the easy part. We then had another 8 mile trip up a dirt road which was about 1/3 of the way big boulders and rocks to get around/go over. I was so nervous the whole time driving up that aweful Setters Road I think it was called.
I was constantly deciding which path would cause the least amount of damage to our Pilot. I got stuck and had to reverse and find a different path about 3 times, one of those times with a cliff behind me. The road was so bad I will probably never go up that way again if I have to drive, despite how beautiful and fun the trip ended up being.
We did finally make it to the very end of the road. Good thing I looked up a bunch of trip reports saying to go to the dead end because I almost turned around a couple times thinking it had to be the wrong road. But the car sustained no damage and we made it to a well marked trail head about 2 hours after leaving Heber (stopping for our 3 day pass, driving to Kamas, then up the terrible road)
Chloe led the way for about 2 minutes before a snack went across the path and she refused to go first anymore. We didn't see any more snakes.
We hiked about 15 minutes or so when we reached the first lily pond covered lake! It was so pretty Chloe was wanting a break anyways at that point so we ate some chips (leftover from school lunch) and dried fruit, drank some water from the camel pack and started on our way again. On our way out it was nice having this little marker to know we were getting close to the car.
There were a lot of fallen trees along the path that we either climbed over or went around. Made the trip interesting! I also liked noticing when the forrest rangers had chainsawed some of the bigger trees to clear the path. It made me more sure we were going the right way!
We both got really excited finding the first sign and marker on our trip. East Shingle Creek Lake was big and beautiful!! We hiked about an hour to this point.
More snacks and selfies ;)
We actually lost the trail just after finding the sign We backtracked to the sign about 3 times thinking if we started where we knew the trail was last we would be sure to find the right way. Well we didn't find the trail again that day but we sort of found a path that lead around the lake and took it even though it was wet and marshy and took us a good 2 hours to make it to the far side of the Lake. Chloe was such a good example of faith and prayer to me. When I was getting a little frustrated about not finding the trail Chloe sat down and said "I need to talk to someone". She then proceeded to say a prayer to help us not be lost and to be safe.
Right after her prayer the gloom lifted enough so that I could tell which way the sun was so we could go East (our tiny little compass had popped itself off of the keychain it was attached to and is now lost forever). But we headed east around the lake until Chloe was hungry and tired (like I said, 2 hours later) and we stumbled upon and awesome campsite. So not wanting Chloe to have a bad experience I conceded to setting up camp and making dinner even though we didn't make it to Lake Erikson like I had planned.
We set up the tent, laid out our sleeping bags and pads and made a yummy dinner of garlic mashed potatoes and cold hot dogs. With the off and on drizzle we had been getting all day the wood we collected was too wet to start. I used up about half our matches and even used to little stove to try and start it but the wood just wouldn't catch. We had twizzlers and oreos for dessert and were both pretty full and satisfied. The mosquitos were terrible so we decided to take refuge inside the tent for the rest of the night.
We played go fish and I taught Chloe how to play kings in the corner. We also read Ramona age 8 to each other and wrote in our journals. Chloe's journal turned out to be a superhero story about her siblings and her getting special powers and defeating lots of bad guys (SO CUTE) and I wrote about our day so I wouldn't forget any details. I love the view from our tent!!
Around 9 we tucked into our sleeping bags and fell asleep really fast. We were on sort of a slope so I woke up a couple times to readjust or turn over. Chloe woke up at 3am to go to the bathroom but other than that she slept all night and we both stayed nice and warm in our borrowed sleeping bags from Em and Uncle Sam.
The next morning we tried getting more water for our hike and breakfast but the pump had stopped working (nate thinks from all the dirt??). So we rationed water and still had enough for oatmeal and hot chocolate, drinking water for the day, and just barely enough for our hike out. I did boil extra water at dinnertime which we drank in the car on the way home because it was too warm before then. It made me grateful for the working stove so I could boil water to drink and the stream of moving water which made me more comfortable drinking it.
Eating our Oatmeal. It was a little chilly in the morning but not too bad. We ended up only using the vests we packed as pillows and we stayed plenty warm. I am glad we packed our thick base layers for sleeping in and our fleeces because it would have been pretty cold in the morning and night without them.
We got dressed and ready for our hike to Lake Erikson. I was hoping to find a trail that went east and found one right after making the final turn around the lake. It headed in the right direction, got steep really quickly, got rocky, went past a beautiful meadow and then we found the sign!! All those little landmarks had been talked about in the trip reports I'd read so I was pretty sure we were on the right path and we were really happy to see the sign showing up the way :)
Crossing a creek
Up at the top of the steepest section - it was pretty short and not terribly steep which I was glad for. Overall the trail was perfect difficulty wise to make an enjoyable trip.
The stream running through this meadow was so clear and I was thirsty from trying to conserve water I was so tempted to just drink it!! But decided it wasn't worth the risk. Next time i should bring back up tablets for water purification.
Jumping for joy when we found the sign!
North Lake Erikson was just a bit past the sign and it was so big and beautiful! We found a nice shady spot to eat lunch and enjoy a little respite from the mosquitos. There weren't as many at Lake Erikson. We did use plenty of bug spray on the trip so it was well worth it's weight!
We had a yummy lunch of hickory smoked and lemon pepper tuna and crackers. I was only going to bring one package but Nate convinced me to bring 2 and Chloe loved the tuna so I'm glad I listened to him! We also snacked on pringles, dried fruit and jerkey.
pringles sounded like a good idea to protect the chips but they sure were bulky to carry around. When we got back it was starting to rain so we went into the tent to journal, read and I got to take a little nap while the rain poured down for about an hour. After the rain let up Chloe was still asking to go back home to play with her cousins. I really wanted to make her trip enjoyable so even though I wanted to stay we decided to have an early dinner, pack up and head home.
Of course we had Chloe's favorite Ramen on the trip. We shared a pot full of ramen. It was nice to hae a hot meal after a day of hiking!
Chloe loved washing out the dishes and fetching water from the creek
Saying goodbye to our little campsite after we were all packed up and ready to start hiking out
We found the original trail about 30 yards before the sign to East shingle creek lake so I had been too focused on the sign and missed the turn to head east before reaching the lake. To be honest it was overgrown with grass and pretty easy to miss, but I was bummed when I saw how close I was to being on the correct path and making it to the planned destination. It took us about 45 minutes to hike out from our campsite to the car, probably because Chloe only stopped once at the lily pond lake. When we got into cell phone reception range we called and met Nate, Tim, and Ted (and all the kids) at a fishing lake.
Chloe was really wanting to fish on the trip but I'm not experienced enough (not to mention packed to the hilt!) so we didn't fish while backpacking. I was glad we got to fish especially because I just got my fishing licence so I got to try a bit. I loved my trip with Chloe and hope we get to go again!
And some other pics :)
Me and Daddy and Wendy
Nate and Zeyta and Avenlea
Cousins! Summer, Zeyta, Avenlea, Marie
No comments:
Post a Comment