Camping and memorializing

This weekend I am going camping with my family and my wife's family up the North Fork of Ogden Canyon. Sadly, I don't have any pictures yet. As I won't be back from camping before this goes up, I thought I would tell you about one of my most memorable camping trips. It was actually a backpacking trip that I did with my father and some friends. My friends and I were in our early teens and very excited to go. I was particularly excited because we were going to Stanley Lake, ID, a favorite camping place of mine when my family lived in Boise.

This picture is from the east end of the lake and does a decent job of showing the rugged mountains that back it to the south. This particular trip was to be a three day, two night, approximately 10 mile trail. It would take us around the McGown Peak (that tall mountain in the photo) into the interior of the Sawtooths, and out the other side. We were very excited.

The map above is a rough approximation of our path. We started at A, parking the car at the trail head and starting out all fresh and cheerful. We enjoyed the relatively flat trail for several miles before it turned and went almost vertical. We ate lunch not long after we started our assent and that is when Dad started to get a little worried. He had not anticipated exactly how much four 13 year-old boys could eat. While he knew we wouldn't starve in the mountains, he also knew that we would not be able to perform at our peak levels because of a below optimum calorie levels. The only time my dad counts calories is when backpacking and then the more the merrier. You need the energy and don't have to worry as much about as you tend to burn it off quickly. We continued on and stopped a few hours before nightfall in the vicinity of B.

It was a beautiful valley between the peaks with a lake near by and others visible in the high hanging valleys up the slope. It got cold, but we were prepared and slept well. The next day, being teenage boys, we played stupid games around and on the lake. This included one friend making a raft to try to float in the ice fed water. Others of us figured we could do better and so pushed a felled tree out into the lake, with ourselves on it. Using our hands, feet, and branches to paddle we ended up about 75 feet out from shore and slowly make our way across. The water was freezing, as was to be expected considering the altitude and early summer. I don't remember how we were able to get back to shore, just that it took a big chuck of the day. One of the things two of the guys from shore did was see if they could hit us with rocks. We only had one person get hit and it was in the leg below the waterline, so it was tempered by the water. I don't know how we didn't have more injuries. Like I said, stupid games.

W had planned to take that day to relax and anticipated covering the remaining 5 miles easily by noon the next day and be home by 6 pm. However, as we went, we began to realize that something was wrong. By the time noon came we realized that we were not even close to our van. Somehow, we had misread the maps and rather than being 5 miles, it was closer to 10. What was worse those extra five miles would be over a group of ridges that were of very respectable altitudes. That's the ridges there in the area bracketed as C. Ultimately, it took another 6 hours to get back to the car. Home at midnight. Our mothers were quite worried about us as we didn't have a cell phone among us.

As Dad had predicted, the less then optimal calories left us very hungry. When we pulled into the Stanley McDonald's we were dirty, hungry, and armed with a decent collection of knives worn openly on our belts. We were not impressive in our physical appearance, but we were intimidating enough for the new guy behind the cashier that when he looked up when we approached that he took a step back. When he asked what he could get for us all four of us said together, "FOOD!" Dad had us order almost double what we would normally eat. And we ate it all.

I hope to put up some photos from this weekends camping trip later this week. I'm looking forward to enjoying some time out of doors and time with my family. We'll see how Kanga and Tigger do at night.