Hiking Back to Redfish Lake

I dragged myself out of my slowly deflating pad and, along with the guys, stuffed my bag lazily full of everything I had unpacked for our one night stay. I forced down some banana oatmeal because it just wasn't sitting well with my stomach and then gulped a couple of bottles full of water that had sat in the cold lake all night. As I heaved the pack onto my back it rested awkwardly and unevenly on my shoulder blades. Chuck wrapped his arms around it and squeezed it as hard as he could to even things out but it was only a temporary fix. The thing with being so tired, though, is that things bother you less. Pebbles in your shoes, that ache from your tendons stretching, and how your shoulders feel like they've been rubbed raw from the small swing of your pack are put on the back burner as you trudge down the the mountain side to get home to a hot meal prepared by someone else.

Home, in this case, was back to Redfish lake. Where peach cobbler cooked in a dutch oven over hot coals awaited us. So we treaded down the mountain, picking handfuls of fresh raspberries and huckleberries, only to make it to the dock hours before our scheduled boat ride to take us back. We didn't have to wait too long, though, as some people had paid to come over earlier than that and we got our ride back. Maycee, who had been previously terrified and shaky on the boat on the way there, was promptly too tired to care now. When we got to the dock, nobody at camp was answering their phones or walky talkys to come pick us up. So we walked more. Me, in bare feet despite how the sun baked pavement burned them. I just needed to let them breath, and didn't feel like putting on my hiking shoes that I took off in order to soak my feet in the lake while we waited for the boat to come get us. After a few more miles of walking we were greeted with smiles and "we were watching the clock to come pick you guys up." It didn't matter. We were "home," and all was good.

Fresh off the trail berries.

Juliann swears that Lydia was born with this look on her face. I tried my mightiest, but I could not get that kid to give me a smile. She's probably going to grow up to be a very classy women who won't take anything less than she's worth.

Cramer Lakes

Like I mentioned earlier, some of us decided to do a one night backcountry trip up to Cramer Lakes. It was seven miles long with a pretty easy incline up until the very end. After filling up on breakfast burritos, Charly's dad drove us over to the boat dock where we took a ten minute ride across the lake. Without the ferry it would have been an extra four miles to hike around the lake...and besides, a boat ride to the hiking trail to backcountry camp to a couple of lakes joined by a waterfall? Just sounds cool. We took the trail pretty slowly, stopping for every side trail that led to better views of the river right by us and then we made it about half way and took an hour long break and changed into our swimsuits. The water chilled and numbed your skin and bones within just a couple of seconds of being in it, but there was a place where the water flowed over large rocks and smoothed them down. They became slippery enough to create a nature made water slide, and honestly, how can you pass that up?

We took a good hour to rest, slide, and eat lunch there and then changed back into our hiking clothes and made our way up to the first out of four of the Cramer Lakes. There we stopped to apply moleskin on my blistering toes. Technically there are only three lakes. I think this is because the upper middle one flows into the lower middle one via waterfall with only fifty feet in between them, which makes for great camping spots. When we arrived we made camp and then got back into our damp and cold suits. The other campers there thought we were out of our minds, but we had heard from a friend that you can jump off the waterfall. Despite the weather being cooler then we anticipated, we were determined to do this. The water was still cold, needless to say, but it was for the sake of adventure, and how can you turn adventure down?!

We spent the rest of the night boiling water on our stoves for the hike back (due to recent forest fires, we had to have a cold camp), talking about books, marriage, and missions, and eating freeze dried lasagna, which is actually pretty delicious. I mean, anything hot and edible is like heaven on a cold night after hiking with a heavy pack on for seven hours.

Every lake had the mountains rising out of the edges of it. I think the reason you're not gonna see very many lake pictures is because they just can't do them justice. The mountains in the back are covered by a layer of smoke from the fires, which occasionally sent ash down on us. I guess they were pretty close.

Chuck showed me a foolproof way to get water from the lake without any floaties in it. It's pretty legit and scientific and awesome. It's the little things in camping life that please you.

Red Fish Lake

The long needed Hill family campout finally arrived. We filled a caravan of cars full of tents, camera gear, and a mini grocery store to feed eight kids, a seven month pregnant women, a newborn, and eight other adults. We wove our way up the road with the Salmon river to the left of us as we made the five hour drive up to the Sawtooth Mountain Range. Charly hadn't seen these mountains since he was a child, and it was my first time so everything was a huge adventure and semi life changing. We had four walky talkys and put one in each vehicle, then talked on them back and fourth concerning river facts, Pa's driving, and dog leash laws for the last hour spent on the road. After driving around the lake to find the perfect camping spot, we settled in and pitched our tents along with a yellow hammock Charly bought me on our honeymoon. After the dust settled and camp was made it took only a few minutes for us to realize that swinging it was not going to cool us down enough, and so we dawned our swim suits and dove into Red Fish lake. I did a front flip, I might add.

After we sun dried and changed back into our clothes we ate fire roasted hot dogs (is there a more tastier way to cook a dog?) and Charly, Joe, Kyler, Bradley, and I packed our bags to get an early start on the morning. You see, for months we had plans for all of us to do a camping trip in the backcountry. At the last moment, though, we realized our maps were outdated and we would be hiking an extra couple of miles, which is a lot for the littles and double for the older kids and us because we planned on making two hiking trips the first and last day to haul all our gear. So car camping it was...but the backcountry itch just couldn't be scratched. So Chuck and I decided we and the older people would do a one night trip to Cramer lakes. More about that in the next post, though.

I envisioned this awesome jump that Charly and I would do, and I even told him: "Bend you legs like this in the air" as I stood there ready to jump. However, as we both leaped into the air the weight of our bodies pushed the dock down into the water, making it impossible to get into formation. Such is life.

Conversation with Chuck as we walked towards camp after strolling around the lake a bit:
C:"Oh look, my dads fishing"
Me: (with my head down and not looking) "Uh huh."
C: "We should get a picture of that."
Me: "Yeah, with your iphone," then I look up and see him and immediately agree and pull out my camera. It was just so beautiful. A different kind of beauty, too. One you can't quite put your finger on, but I'm sure that I could never live in highly populated areas and especially not the city.