I got back from my big family camping trip yesterday evening. I'll try to hit the highlights here. If I ever find the cord that allows my camera to communicate with the computer, I'll probably post some pictures as well.
Sunday
Left Pocatello about 8:00. Amazingly, I only had to run back to my house once; I'd forgotten to grab peanut butter and jelly. Stopped for lunch in Challis. The restaurant there has nothing I can eat, so I had peanut butter and jelly and wandered around while my parents ate. Arrived at Stanley Lake around 14:00 and set up camp. For me, that meant putting up my tent and inflating the kayak and the float tube. The kayak was easy; we have a great foot pump and it takes almost no time. The float tube was a nightmare. When the old tire pump broke, Dad replaced it with a foot pump. A tiny foot pump. It took 1200 pumps on the bloody thing to get the float tube blown up, more than 20 minutes! The kayak took maybe 10, and it's bigger. I hate that pump. Anyway... It was cold and rainy on Sunday, so we didn't do much beyond getting things set up. Well, I hiked down the outlet a ways, but that was about it.
Monday
Monday morning was cold. I had barely begun doing some taiji warm-ups when my mom decided it was time to make breakfast. She seems to be afraid to try and mix up the gluten-free pancake mix on her own. I have yet to figure out why, since the instructions are right on the package and she's seen me do it several dozen times. Dad took off fishing after breakfast. I waited until it was a bit warmer and took the kayak out on the lake. Now that's what I call freedom: by myself on the water, surrounded by the sky above, only the depth of water to limit my progress. I went directly across to the other side of the lake. There are no camping spaces there, just an old trail that I suspect was made by elk. I didn't get out over there; I just followed that shoreline. Eventually I found where my dad was fishing. I found out he hadn't caught any and moved on.
As I got closer to the far 'corner' of the lake, I noticed something odd. Most years, there is a sandbar that goes most of the way across, leaving maybe a fifty foot gap and creating a mini-pond off of the main lake. This year, most of the sandbar was under water. The mini-pond was part of the main lake for a change. I saw a great blue heron wading in the marshy grasses over there, and tried to get close enough to get a better look. He didn't like that idea and took off, but I did find a feather he'd left behind. Gorgeus blue-grey, in perfect condition. I continued paddling around the lake's new extension, and came across some wildflowers I hadn't seen before. There was no land to speak of, but there were places where the water was only five inches deep. At one of these, I jumped out, secured the boat, and managed to get a decent picture of the flower (picture and name when I find the camera cord...).
I paddled around a bit more, decided I was hungry, and headed back for lunch. After lunch I took the float tube out. Since I don't wear waders with it, there's no way I'm taking it out in the morning. The water in Stanley Lake is fed by snow-run-off. It's probably around 40 degrees in the summer, maybe 45-50 by the end of August. The wind was coming up (as it always does in the afternoon), and it wasn't quite warm enough for me to deal with the splashes of cold water down my back, so I didn't stay out long. After I got out, I started waiting for the hives on my legs to appear. No, I'm not allergic to anything in the water. I'm allergic to the cold water touching my skin. It's called Cold Uriticaria. I have a comparatively mild case of it. I get hives and red bumps after prolonged exposure to cold. I've heard of some people who can't reach into the refrigerator without protection, and whose lips turn blue if they eat ice cream. My case is mild enough that I mostly find it amusing, now that I know what causes it. Last year the water was quite a bit warmer than usual, and I was almost disappointed not to get any hives...
That evening, I wandered further down the outlet. Usually, I can follow a trail that goes right next to the stream, but the water was so high this year that I would have been walking through mud and water. So I took a trail that was further inland. Eventually it leads to another campground around a small pond, full of lilies and grasses. I followed the trail around the pond, and down a ways, eventually coming to the dam. Stanley is a natural lake, so I'm not sure why the dam is there. It's a concrete wall that cuts across the outlet, maybe thirty feet across. It makes a nice waterfall, and is a convenient way to cross the stream without getting too wet, but I have no clue why it's there. All I can find on the web is 'fish barrier', so maybe it was supposed to trap more fish in the lake for people to catch. *shrugs*
This time people were fishing on the dam, so I didn't try to cross it. Their dog barked an excited warning/hello until her masters called her back. Then she came out again, not barking, circled me, and licked my hand. She followed me for a bit as I wandered further downstream, but eventually returned to her family. I wandered further past the dam than in previous years, but the trail began to get harder to find and I didn't fancy getting lost. So I headed back. When I made it back around the lily pond, another big black dog barked a challenge. For a moment I wondered if I was in trouble, as he was rather close and quite large, but when he came close, he also licked my hand. Then he stood in the middle of the path, blocking the way. I told him he should go back to his family, and eventually he did. I think by not being scared off, and just waiting calmly to see what the dogs would do, I passed some sort of dominance test. I'm not really sure though.
Tuesday
On Tuesday, I had decided I was going to hike in the morning. My dad didn't seem enthused, so I told him he could go fishing and I would hike. For some reason, he changed his mind after breakfast and decided to go with me. We hiked up to Bridalveil Falls. It's five miles from the trailhead, but the trailhead was probably half a mile from the camp. The most interesting thing about the first two miles is the wildflowers in the meadows. Otherwise it's flat, flat, flat gravel. Then the good part starts. The trail starts going up and up and up. I suspect the trail was once an old quarry road. There are bits of stone alongside that look like they might have been 'cut' from larger ones. The first time I hiked that path, I kept picking up pretty stones and putting them in my pockets. Let's just say that's not a good thing to do with loose shorts and no belt... ;-)
Maybe halfway up, there's a tiny stream that goes across the trail, small enough to step across. We caught up with a large group there, also headed for Bridalveil Falls, and beyond. They were planning to climb up beside the falls to some lakes that lay above it and invited us to join them. My dad said a hasty 'no.' While I wouldn't mind climbing past the falls sometime, I would rather do it with a smaller group. It doesn't seem like wilderness in a group of twenty or thirty people. Anyway, we turned off to go to Ladyface falls a bit further up, and that group got a long ways ahead of us. Well, I went to Ladyface Falls. Dad rested. To get a view of the falls, you have to clamber down some rocks and boulders, and my dad doesn't like heights much.
Onward and upward, then downward and across Stanley Lake Creek on rickety logs, and upward some more, we came to a large flat area below Bridalveil Falls. I would have liked to try and get closer, but Dad adamantly refused. At this point, I was full of energy and all for hiking another three miles to some other set of lakes... Just as well I didn't. The way back is mostly easier, as it's mostly downhill. So long as you place your feet, rather than falling on them, downhill is also easier on the legs. When we got to the flat, my enthusiasm began to give out. When we got to the gravelled section of trail, my feet began to hurt. By the time we made it back to camp, I was exhausted and practically ripped my shoes off. I bolted down some lunch, and rested for a while. We had gone eleven miles in about 3.5 hours. Considering all the ups and downs, and that we rested and took side paths, that was a darn good time. Better than we'd ever made before. However, my fondest thought was of soaking my feet in the lake so I took the float tube out again.
That evening, I mostly took it easy. After eating dinner, dad built a fire to use up all the wood we'd brought with us. I hung around the fire, reading, playing my flute... I was the last one to leave the hearth and collapse into my sleeping bag.
Wednesday
I woke up still exhausted, but managed to pull myself out of the sleeping bag. I'm still not sure if I had a slight cold, or if it was a combination of overexertion and allergies, but I felt lousy. I felt better after doing some taiji warmups, even better after breakfast, and took the kayak out for one last spin round the lake. For once, my parents didn't argue with me about it; usually they insist that we have to get packed and going, so I can't possibly take the kayak out on the last day. Maybe they finally figured out that they spent as much time arguing with me about it as it would have taken me to go out on the lake anyway. This time I followed a trail of seaweed, nearly all the way across the lake. There was a fifty foot section where I couldn't see any of the leafy plants growing out of the bottom (though the bottom of the lake was still visible), but otherwise it was practically a solid highway. Then I followed the opposite shore down to the swamp/former mini-pond and made a diagonal journey back to camp, thence to carry the kayak up and deflate her.
My parents had accomplished very little while I was gone. Apparently Dad couldn't put anything away until he put my paddles away. Which makes no sense whatsoever since the paddles could have sat on top of everything else. But we got everything packed up, and headed out around 11:00. We stopped off at Redfish and Alturas Lakes, briefly. Redfish is too commercialized for my tastes, though it's pretty. Alturas always makes me sneeze. We camped there for one miserable night several years ago. I sneezed the whole time. Then we were back on the road and headed toward Ketchum, where my parents always eat lunch. The restaurant has nothing I can eat, so I always go over to the Chapter One bookstore across the street. It's got an awesome selection of eclectic books, and is connected to an organic foods market. This time, most of the books that interested me were nearly identical to ones I already had. I did get a translation of Epictetus (a Stoic Greek philosopher). As I left, I noticed another bookstore a block over, so I wandered over to it. It was a nightmare. Shelves everywhere and nary a place to step. When I eventually found the section I was looking for (inside the downstairs restroom), I was too fed up even to look closely at it. Then I saw my mom at the top of the stairs. She and Dad had gotten done eating sooner than I had anticipated, and she'd lucked out in seeing me wander into the nightmare bookstore.
Then we were homeward bound again. I drove from the gas station at Carey to Pocatello. My dad felt compelled to point out that the wind could blow the camper around... Considering that the wind has less effect on a pickup loaded with a camper than it does on my little Echo, the warning was insulting. It wasn't meant to be, but it was. We got home, released Ji'e'toh from the house (my grandma had beenc checking on her every day), transferred my stuff to my car, and I headed home, grateful that I had leftovers in the freezer to call dinner. And that was that. More details (hopefully) when I post pictures.
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