Matt ferries people across streams
Rather than the usual 4th of July with fireworks and crowds of people, we got away from it all this weekend on a camping trip to Pamelia Lake in the Mt Jefferson Wilderness. We went with our friends Travis and Lucy, and it was Lucy’s 30th birthday on the 4th. This was her first ever backpacking trip, and the longest hike she’s done too, so pretty badass stuff for a divisible by 10 birth year if you ask me…
From the trailhead to the lake is a little over two miles. This was a good distance to go with a pack for people who haven’t backpacked much, and I made it harder than it had to be by carrying in a pack weighing over 40 pounds with all sorts of luxury items like camp chairs and alcohol that I
would not normally carry backpacking. One of the nicest things about this wilderness area is that there’s a limited number of people allowed. You have to get a free permit, and they only give out so many. Of course, this doesn’t stop everyone from entering without a permit, but in general you’ll have fewer neighbors and trail traffic than you would otherwise. We got into the lake camping area late afternoon on Friday, so most of dozen or so sites were taken, but we still got a really nice one right near the water.
We spent the evenings eating and drinking a lot while playing cards and hanging out. We taught Lucy to play Euchre, a game which Travis had just learned the week before at Jacob’s bachelor party camping trip. We mixed 99 Bananas and Peppermint Schnapps with hot chocolate for our desert :-)
Waterfall on the way up to the lakes
Saturday we did a day hike to Hanks and Hunts Lake. This was probably about 8 miles of roundtrip hiking. The hardest part was that we couldn’t find the trail after doing a stream crossing. It looks like the water changes which stream bed it flows down fairly frequently, sometimes choosing the ‘trail’ as it’s path. Kim and I hiked in our sandals, so we would ferry Travis and Lucy across stream crossings so as not to get their feet wet. The hike had lots of views of waterfalls and snow-capped Mt. Jefferson. We got to the first lake and we ate lunch. Ubuntu went exploring the icy lake and fell through the ice into shallow water. Boy was she surprised. After lunch Travis and Lucy relaxed in the hammock we carried up, while Kim and I hiked a bit farther to the next lake for a cold swim.
We were all pretty tired after a hike back, especially after a big dinner and some more hot chocolate and mixers. Lucy brought some sparklers, so we lit those off on the lake shore. The next day we hiked out, had lunch at a Mexican restaurant and drove home to shower and enjoy our comfortable beds again.