Backpacking in the White Clouds

I know, not as exotic or exciting as SE Asia, but it was a great trip. 

Jeff and I headed out after work on Friday and drove up to Challis.  It gave us one last chance for a bed and a shower before the trip. As we were driving in the smoke was terrible.  Jeff was joking that we were driving in to Mordor.  Challis a small town that it appears no one has ever heard of and stayed at a small hotel for $45 for the night.  We found a great little breakfast place on our way out of town and then drove another hour to the trail head. 
The smoke on the drive up to Challis.

At the start of our hike up the Little Boulder Creek trail it looks like Arizona or southern Utah.  Lots of rocks and sagebrush.  You can't see the mountains hiding in the middle of the hills.  With that being said there was a lot of up.  It's been a while since I've gone backpacking, the first mile was rough.  After that I seemed to get warmed up and hit my stride.

About 6 miles in to it we started seeing the peaks in the distance up ahead.  We stopped in a meadow with a great view of Castle Peak.

Color version
The Ansel Adams version
We then hiked to Willow Lake, Hatchet Lake and decided to make camp at Shelf lake.  It was about 9.5 miles in and a whole lot of up!

This was the view from our camp.  Not too shabby!

Can you see our tent nestled among the trees?
Once we got camp set up and splashed around in the lake a bit to wash off some of the stink and sweat from hiking we had a little time to do some reading in our little camp chairs.  Happiness is!

I took a break from relaxing with my book to take this picture from my camp chair.
Next on the agenda was dinner for some hungry hikers.  I have to say the MountainHouse freeze dried meals always taste amazing when you've had a long hike.  Our teriyaki chicken was no exception.  Food always tastes great backpacking.  We watched the sun set over the hills and by that point it was getting pretty late because we are so far north the days are crazy long.  After a long day of fresh air and sunshine it was off to bed for us!

Sunset
The moon was an amazing pink color and super bright.  I didn't bring my mini tri-pod so no pictures, sorry!  But it was great.

The rest of the trip is coming soon!  Happy trails!


Comments

  1. LucyJuly 27, 2013 at 4:54 PM

    The Ansel Adams version is AMAZING! What a wonderful picture! And I've heard of Challis, lol- it's got the same highway and mileposting as Arco, and they're near impossible to tell apart unless you know some company secrets :)

    Yay for blogging again!

    ReplyDelete

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