Trail Cooking & The Outdoors

There were a set of subalpine lakes I had long wanted to visit. I had tried a couple years ago and was turned back due to snow on the back side. Jared and I got talking on Thursday and when he heard the lakes had fish he said ‘lets go’. So off we went early yesterday morning to the mountains.

There is a trail of sorts, a boot path, but not a legitimate trail. Steep and short at least, up and over a ridge. The trail it seems is kept open by a large population of Elk…..

The fall colors are just starting to show with ripe Huckleberries and Blueberries lining the way, the entire way! (Wild Blues here)

As we dropped down into the basin this was below us:

We passed the upper lake and headed to the lower lake, following the maze of animal paths around till we came out.

The trees were particularly pretty here, the lower lake was ringed by them. No bugs and quite protected. There were meadows just beyond the lake, stretching quite far. Exploring the area would be a fun option.

Looking at the head of the lower lake. The lower lake also had a beach the entire way around. The ridge behind was in the start of turning red and orange.

One last look at the lower lake before we took a different way back to the upper lake (of about 20 feet elevation gain):

The upper lake (with Jared walking through my photo):

The upper lake had wind and would howl at times. The water was also very deep and had a drop off only a few feet in – from a couple inches to up to your neck.

The lake was ringed by a sloping meadow that was very wet – there is a lot of ground water in the area, seeping year round down to the lake.

Jared put on his waders and headed out, fly fishing for quite some time. I hung out under a set of trees in the shade and contemplated my eyelids

The fish of course decided to disappear but then as always, appeared once he was out of the water having lunch…..

I tried a new idea – Mini Trail Sliders, which while were good were way messy Oh well!

I was going to get potato rolls to use when Jared saw these mini slider buns by Athens Baking Company. Cool!

The dry ingredients:

The buns with Swiss cheese sliced on top:

Ready to eat:

Jared enjoying lunch (or at least pretending…hehheh!)

At the pass as we headed back:

Battling the Slide Alder on the way back:

It was warm, sunny, blue skied….got to eat lots of berries. Not a bad hike!

~Sarah

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