Trail of Tears...Sheep Lake

A few weekends ago Sean, I, Cailin, & Dom Went on a backpacking trip the first weekend of August (If I remember right). We went up in the Seven Devils... to some lakes we had not yet explored. It was quite the memorable trip, tears, scars, bites, sweat, scenery, good food, and good company. Sean & I at Basin Lake. We had just stopped there for lunch the second day.

Cailin posing at Sheep lake... we teased her that this could be the cover of a fitness magazine. Look at those rippling muscles!

We took the "goat trail" in the first night. It is an unmarked/unmaintained trail that is straight up and straight down.. but it is two ish miles instead of 10ish miles to get into Sheep Lake. It was tough, especially because we got a harder start than we wanted to and we were hiking in in the dark. We missed where the trail started to make it's way down the mountain... and found our own way down some massive skee fields. Again, quite the adventure. My legs were like Jello when we got down! So, we ended up camping that night above Sheep lake, and after breakfast in the morning we were joined by 4 mountain goats! It was really cool, we got to observe them for quite a while, and really close.

We had pork chops for dinner the first night.... cooked them on sticks over the fire... it was just what we needed.

Pork Chop cooking over the fire... what a beautiful sight.

The Sun setting, moon coming up, beautiful picture...... yet us trying to make it to camp still!

I believe this is Mirror lake, we are still trying to get into Sheep lake at this point, you can see it is getting darker!

Like I said, straight up and straight down =)

And another fire picture. The camera never can quite capture the mesmerising effect a fire has.

One the way out.

Dom & Cailin at Basin Lake.

Sheep Lake from up top. I think this picture makes it look smaller than it actually is.

Sean, Cailin, and Dom "body sledded" down this snow several times. I'm taking the picture, at our campsite the first night. They tried all different ways. The most successful ways seemed to be sliding face first on your belly like a penguin.

Me and Mr. Mountain Goat.

I liked this picture because i think it looks like they are posing for the camera. Off in the distance you can see Hells Canyon.

Spring Valley

A while ago Evan and MJ invited us to go with them on a little Sunday drive/walk out to Spring Valley Reservoir. As always it was good to get outside!

Rapid River

Our first backpacking trip of the summer took us to the Rapid River Canyon. Every thing you read about this area tells you to do this trail in early summer or you will die of heat. Well, our weather was perfect. It wasn't a very technical trail, but that is just fine. We pushed ourselves quite a few miles the first night because we weren't getting started until early evening, and we needed to make it before dark. The trail follows the Rapid River up a canyon... there are no places to camp until you get in far enough that things flatten out.
Taking down camp. We camped right by the river (no other options=) and the water was loud. But beautiful of course. Sean always loves drinking the water from the mountains (filtered of course), I don't blame him Moscow water is nothing to brag of.

I can't quite put into words why I loved this meadow/surrounding forest so much. It's the way it made me feel. One of the most beautiful Ponderosa stands I've ever seen probably. I want to build a cabin right there.

Very unique flower. This one is for you mom.

Dad walking through my meadow.

Mom and I in my meadow.

My husband the "tree hugger". He would not be proud of this picture, believe me =)

Showing the size of this gigantor Ponderosa Pine.

This is probably my favorite picture of the trip. Random I know. It just looks so posed... but it's not... jut a good photographer =).

Rubber Boa. My dad said this was the first time he's actually seen one in the wild. This is the best picture we got. You can't tell the difference between their head and tail, they look the same. We actually saw 3 or 4 snakes on this trip. Cassi.... sorry you had to look at this picture =).

We saw lots of this.... Leafs of three Let it be!!!!!! Poison!

The Pretty River and canyon.

Sean took a lot of pictures of wild flowers. There were so many varieties. If it didn't take so long to load pictures, I would have put more up! He is a pretty good photographer though.

And last but not least... my Man.

Another picture of us hiking up the canyon.