And Then There Were Sore Legs and Sunburned Shoulders and Happy Hearts

Franz
Adam
Three Amigos

Sky High Lake


From the Pacific Crest Trail!

Whoa ho ho we meet again friends. I have just returned from one hell of a backpacking trip in the Klamath mountains and that shall be the topic of this here blogging endeavor.

What you need to know:

It was hot ---100+ degrees

It was dry

It was steep ---elevation gain: brutal

The water was pristine

The bears were aplenty

The views were spectacular

Quick synopsis: We arrived at Lovers Camp Friday afternoon around 4 and hit the trail hard, hiking six miles to our first campsite at Lower Sky High Lake. These pictures don’t do it justice, as usual. I didn’t sleep a wink that night as I lay there alone listening to all the animals (bears, deer, mice) saunter through our campsite, probably drawn by the remnants of the fishy smell that lingered in the air around our dwindling camp fire, which brings me to the better parts of the night. Franz caught three fish: two rainbow trout and another I can’t remember. It was tasty just the same though. The swimming there was fantastic – the lake was crystal clear- you could almost drink the water it was so pure and crisp (all we did was pump it out). Saturday was a big day, though I daresay bigger than Sunday. We hiked about 8 miles to this place called Cliff Lake. Saturday’s hike was especially nice because we were on the Pacific Crest Trail for a while, which is absolutely beautiful- the views are no disappointment, that’s for sure. I was pretty exhausted Saturday night from lack of sleep and even less energy and ended up crashing hard around 8. But before I did I went swimming and Cliff Lake was freezing, probably a hole left behind by a glacier years ago. And the stream that flowed into it was even colder. We ate fish again and feasted on mac and cheese and veggie burger mush that came in a box. Yeah the veggie burger paste was kind of nasty. Ah and that brings us to Sunday. Oh, Sunday. What better way to spend the holy day than to bushwhack your way to the top of a 7000 foot peak? I can think of none. We ended up taking a secondary trail to cut some distance off our hike back to the car (because we hiked 4 miles out of our way on Saturday to get to Cliff Lake), which still came out around 9 miles or so. Anyway, this secondary trail was overgrown and hard to follow at times so we finally said fuck it and just picked a path and walked, crawled, and cursed every step of the way until we were at the top. Guess how high we climbed within a mile. No, go ahead and do it. Ok. You might be right. 1000 feet. How’d you do? It was pretty much vertical. And the way down on the other side was quite treacherous indeed. Lucky for us we found the trail again and after another steep climb we were pretty much home free for the last five miles, which were a downhill breeze. When I got tired I thought about the number of times I almost fell down a mountainside carrying 35 pounds on my back. Yeah, we’re badass like that I guess. Ha ha. Anyway, the last five miles seemed to take forever and the car was a welcome sight indeed! Air conditioning. God bless the man who invented that shit.