Vvajk: October 2009

I just wanted to dedicate a blog post to the recent backpacking trip I took with good friends into the Boulder White Cloud Mountains of the Sawtooth Recreation Area in Central Idaho. We covered about twenty five miles in four days through some of the most beautiful and rugged scenery on planet Earth. It was great to have my brother along this time, and though we ran into our share of problems, all in all it turned out to be a success in my thinking, although there are some who would probably disagree.

For starters the route I had planned out for the group is a seldom used route where the trail isn't always clear, safe, or not there at all. We were discouraged by a forest ranger to go this way, but of course, we just had to do it anyway.

The major mistake was at Baker Lake where the trail forked and we were at a loss. The map we had didn't show that the trail forked. I was pretty confident that we needed to go right, but there was one in the group who thought we should go left. He volunteered to hike up ahead on the left trail to scout it out. Upon his return he reported that left was indeed the way to go. I still didn't feel right about it, but thought I'd give him the benefit of the doubt, as he is older than the rest of us and to my thinking has had a lot more of this type of experience. This turned out to be a big mistake.

To make a long story short we ended up on no trail at all, following a stream up into a steep, God-forsaken canyon strewn with giant boulders, massive fallen trees, twisted gnarled brush, and to my delight. . . bear crap everywhere. Down in the trees I couldn't see the peaks around us, but as soon as we got up out of the tree line, I realized that something wasn't right. I dug out my map and compass and quickly discovered we had over shot our intended destination, known as Slickenside Creek, basically a waterfall that tumbles down a steep gorge we wanted to climb to get to Noisy Lake.

This mistake cost us a day of hiking. The next day proved to be difficult as we had to climb the Slickenside Creek gorge and up and over 10,000 ft Windy Devil Pass all in one day. This turned out to be a monumental challenge to the group, straining muscles and relationships along the way. There is no trail up to the pass and we had to bush whack our way following my map and compass. There were still questions and disagreements about which way to go, but this time I refused to let anyone sway me from where I knew we needed to go. At last we came to the top of the pass and were rewarded with a tremendous sight of the Boulder Chain Lakes over the other side.

The rest of the hike went without a problem, but this was an amazing trip. I could sit here and write a small book if I really went into detail, but I'll let the pictures do the talking for me. I think I will do this hike again some day. I think it could be much more enjoyable without the mistakes and arguing.