Browns Lake Trip July 2020 Day 3

We slept in on day 3. The plan was for a longer day's hike, but it was going to be a whole lot of downhill, so there was no rush. I was not feeling very well, and it showed in my sluggish pace of packing. I usually don't leave the tent until I'm all packed up, but on this morning I left a bit earlier so I could go dig a hole. Then I had to go back into the tent and finish up. 

Browns Lake in the morning.

Ambrose is all set and ready to go.

It felt like I was coming down with something, but I couldn't figure out exactly what. I just felt low energy, vaguely headachy and a little sick to my stomach. I knew I didn't feel like hiking at my usual fast pace, so I didn't let Ambrose start before me, because it would take too long for me to catch up. 

We took it rather slow towards the outlet of the lake in order to search for morels. We didn't find any, though there we did find other mushrooms. An abundance of them. 

Some creature feasted on these mushrooms, but they aren't for us. 

Heading down to the outlet.

Ambrose at the outlet.

After that it was a matter of making our way carefully down the steep sections to the next junction. Ambrose walked right past it, but then said he wanted to stop at it when we were halfway down the ramp. I let him know that he was free to backtrack to the sign to take a break if he wanted, but I was going to keep going. 

Getting ready for a stream crossing.

Lovely morning flowers.

Ants in the ant plant.

One last view from up high.

He ended up agreeing with me that it would be better to take our break at the base of the ramp, so we kept hiking down until we got there. Sometimes, I wake up feeling not so great, and then I end up feeling better as the day goes on. On this day, not so much. 

I still felt like I was dragging even as the day went on. If anything, I felt a bit worse as the day went on, especially when we encountered tree problems that I had to go around. Or under. Or over... 

More flowers!

See, Ambrose is still hiking ahead of me, I'm clearly not well.

Quite a tangle of debris in this stream.

Getting closer to the Scenic Lake trail junction.

When we got close to the tarn, we heard some movement and splashing. I asked Ambrose to stop so I could take a few pictures of the deer enjoying the water. I thought there was just one, but upon closer inspection of the photographic evidence, I have to revise my estimate to 2. 

Look very closely and you'll see a couple of deer, directly to the left of the base of the little green tree on the right.

From the tarn, it's not all that far to the crossing of the Little Queens River. But to me, it felt like a really long time. I just didn't want to be moving at all, and I knew that I should keep going. I also knew that if I really thought it was needful, we could go all the way to the car and then go home. I didn't think I needed to do that, but it was comforting to know that I could. 

Every tree I stepped over felt like an added burden.

Ninemeyer junction - almost to the crossing.

I was in full on head-down hiking mode by the time we got to the crossing. I wanted to just pick a spot and stop walking for the day. Instead, I got to stop only to get up again and hike through freezing cold water. On the other side, Ambrose was ready to go before I was, and I struggled to keep up with him for the rest of the day. 

Luckily, the rest of the day wasn't that long. We were not at all far from the spot we wanted to camp for the night. Really, we weren't. It just felt like a terribly long time to me is all. A time in which I would fall behind Ambrose, catch up, and then fall behind again. When we got close, Ambrose pulled ahead for good, reaching the campsite before I was within line of sight. 

Ahhhh! Enough tree problems!

Ambrose crossing the Little Queens.

Ambrose crossing a side stream. We have to take it upstream a bit, because on the trail the water is fast and deep.

This one's a dilly of a pickle. 

I was feeling pissy when he went out of sight. I wanted to ask him for something, but he wasn't there to ask. I couldn't even ask him to stop, he was too far ahead. And I thought I saw the campsite, but it turned out not to be the right spot. No, I found the right spot when I caught up to Ambrose and saw him off the trail heading towards the spot we'd agreed on. 

And here's my last glimpse of Ambrose for a while...

Once I arrived, I was in no mood to do anything. I sat down in the shade and rested for a while. Ambrose did the same. But soon enough the shade we were sitting in became sunny and we had to get up and move. While Ambrose went and got water for the night, I pitched the tent. We had planned to go get water together, but since I didn't feel well Ambrose was very kind and got it by himself. 

The tent was in pretty full sun. However, I discovered that if I stretched out in the tent on the ground, rather than on my sleeping pad, the cool of the earth kept me more comfortable. It was still hot though, so Ambrose didn't join me. 

The view from my side of the tent. 

The day, overall, went pretty well. I wished I wasn't feeling ill, but at least I was out in the woods. I love being out there, hearing the water flowing and the wind blowing and getting scolded by chipmunks and serenaded by birds.

Browns Lake Trip July 2020 Day 2

We didn't wake up super early this morning. I mean, before 7, but not before 6. The sun wasn't "up" mostly because of our position, snugly tucked against an eastern ridge. As usual, I wanted to linger in the tent, where I was warm and cozy. Unfortunately, I was also becoming quite uncomfortable as nature was calling. I like to pack things up before leaving the tent in the morning so I don't have to go back in; I managed to do that this morning, but just barely. 

Our campsite was very gray in the morning light. The burned area has started recovering, but the ground is still mostly ash colored sand and pebbles. The air had a bite to it, but wasn't too cold. I had my down jacket on for protection while I found a spot far from water and tent to dig my hole. 

Afterwards, I sat on a log near the tent and devoured what remained of my pizza from the night before. Cold pizza makes a good dinner AND a good breakfast. I only wished I had more left to eat. Instead, I got to supplement my breakfast with our more typical backpacking food, energy bar and meat stick. 

Ambrose was packed and ready to go before I was. He usually is, because I typically carry the tent. Can't pack the tent until it's empty, and taken down. So Ambrose keeps packing while I take down the tent, and I can't get very far in my packing without the tent. It's very sneaky. He does help me with folding the tent though, but he gets rewarded with kisses, so does that even count as altruism? 

View from our campsite in the morning.

We started hiking back to the Little Queens River trail before the sun hit our campsite. Once we arrived, we turned right and headed towards Browns Lake. Today's mileage was going to be a bit shorter than yesterday's, but we would have a lot of climbing near the end. 

Ambrose on the Little Queens River trail.

Looking back towards Scenic Lake (which I still haven't visited).

Hiking in the sunshine through the meadow.

There weren't as many downed trees on this part of the trail; we still ran across some, but not nearly as many as the day before. And the ones we did run into, well, some of them were quite different. It looked like some smaller trees had been completely uprooted and then moved somehow, and ended up on or in the trail. 

This tree certainly didn't grow on this spot in the middle of the trail!

It seems like every time I hike this trail, it takes less time to get from the Scenic Lake trail junction to the base of the last climb before the Browns Lake trail junction. Ambrose and I call that section, from where the trail takes a distinct right angle turn around a large pine tree, followed by an uphill slope into a bushy area, and another right angle turn, all the way up to the Browns Lake trail junction - well, almost all the way. Technically, in my mind, the ramp ends at the stream crossing just before the junction. 

The start of the ramp.

Another wholly uprooted tree, with very clean roots.

A small idea of what hiking the ramp is like. 

I had been hiking with Ambrose for most of the morning, but at the ramp I took the lead. I'm faster at hiking uphill than he is, and I get pretty frustrated going behind him uphill - unless I'm not feeling well. I like to keep a continuous pace rather than stopping and starting, and Ambrose is also more of a stopper/starter when going uphill. But that problem is easily solved by having me range ahead. 

I sat and looked at the clouds while I waited for Ambrose to catch up.

There's a particular rock near the top that I like to sit on; I stopped there to let Ambrose get a little closer before I took off again. It's funny; I'm tired of being in the same room with him at our apartment, but out in the wilderness, I just want to stick together. Once he got close, I headed up again, content in the knowledge that the ramp was almost over. 

The stream crossing had changed again when I got there. I swear this crossing changes every time we go there. But these changes were for the better, since the water was flowing more nicely and the trail didn't have any holes in it. 

The crossing this year: quite green, well built trail, flowing water, tree debris.

I waited for Ambrose just after the junction for Browns Lake - since I take care never to pass a junction without him, I made sure I could see the trail from where I sat, past the junction itself. He wasn't long in coming, and we took a break there for a few minutes before going on. 

It's been a bit since I've been to Browns Lake, so I had forgotten how steep the next section was. My memory had elided a bit of the trail that continued the ramp's upward trend, skipping straight to the really cool meadow before the next stream crossing. Well, I had to earn that cool meadow. 

More climbing! Before I was mentally prepared for it ;)

I don't think this would be a good place to camp, but I love how it's a little meadow in a bowl.

I expected a small stream crossing in the meadow itself, and I could even hear water flowing, but where the trail crossed the stream bed there was no water. I could look upstream about 20 feet and actually see water flowing, but it went underground before it reached the trail. Dry feet on that crossing. 

Ambrose was actually disappointed at that, because he wanted to get more water. I reassured him that we'd get to another stream crossing very quickly and he followed me the not long distance there without complaining too much. 

Water for filtering! And not too difficult of a boots-on crossing.

I crossed first and headed up the trail a bit until I found a spot flat enough to rest a bit. I got some water for us and Ambrose started filtering. I didn't do a fill up, because I hadn't drunk all my water, and I didn't feel like carrying the extra weight on the final push up to the lake. But I did take a snack break and looked around. As sometimes happens when you let your eyes rest a moment on nature, I suddenly saw more than I had a moment before and pointed with my trekking pole to a spot next to Ambrose. 

"Look!" He looked. He did not see. I tried adjusting my pointing, and then just walked over to point my finger directly at what had caught my attention. 

"Mushroom. Morel! You want it?" He did, of course. 

I only wish I'd taken a picture of it first, especially that Ambrose was sitting so close to it without seeing it. Oh, and its friends - there were two more once I started looking. And so we began to keep an eye out for morels, even though we hadn't expected to find any this late in the season. But we were getting close to, if not over, 8000 feet at that point. Summer comes later that high. 

We climbed a long way already from the valley floor.

But there was more climbing yet to do.

Ambrose kept up with my pretty well, even on this uphill, rocky scramble. He was, in fact, too fast for me to pull my kindle out and get any reading done, so I had to make do with enjoying all the natural sights and sounds around me while I waited for him to get closer. 

This area looks nothing like how it did when I first saw it; it's much greener, and less of a mud pit. 

Mushrooms yes, morels, no.

Within sneezing distance of 8300 feet, snow on the trail.

In a surprisingly short time, we made it to the lake. Right near the outlet is where most people camp, so it was a good sign that we couldn't see any people as we hiked in. The snow was another clue; I didn't see any recent prints, or any people prints at all really. Not until I made some. And when we got to the outlet, it was clear that the lake was ours. 

Browns Lake - what a beauty.

And there was no one else there!

The first time we camped at Browns Lake we took a spot between the outlet spot and the far side spot. We tried to find it again on this trip, but either we're not looking in the right place or the spot got washed out. It was a bit steep for pitching a tent to begin with... 

There's a morel in this photo. Also one of my new boots.

Having failed to find the original spot, we went on to our second spot. I led the way again, directing us around the lake, and running into another morel on the way (but only the one). As expected, there was no one at the far side of the lake either. We truly did have it to ourselves, a rare treat. 

One of the views from our campsite. 

It wasn't quite noon, and we had finished our hiking for the day. Time to chill out and relax! 

Well, first it was time for lunch, and we were both ready to eat by that point. Not quite hungry enough to snap at each other, but it was only a matter of time before we got there. Ambrose cooked, and I scouted out the tent site, and started clearing out the pointier rocks and pinecones from my selected space. I got it pitched, but didn't get anything set up inside before it was time to eat. 

After lunch, I got a lot of reading done, pitched the tent, recorded some videos to use for Zoom backgrounds and just generally did my absolute best to relax and enjoy myself. Because I was out in the middle of the wilderness and I didn't have to do anything right at that moment. Sure, there would be camp chores later, but they could wait a while. The tent was actually cooler without the sleeping pad protecting me from the cold ground below, so it was perfectly reasonable to delay that chore. 

The day had been relaxing, but I was ready to sleep when the sun started sinking below the ridgeline. 

Browns Lake Trip July 2020 Day 1

Usually, when we plan to hike out on the same day that we drive out, we start driving as early in the morning as possible. Not this time. This time, we wanted to order some breakfast from a local cafe, so we waited until they opened and then made our order and headed out to pick it up on the way out of town. We ate while sitting in the parking lot, and then went on out of town, stopping only for gas at Idaho City.

There were some people camped at the trailhead, but it wasn't crowded. Maybe half a dozen cars at the trail parking, and one of the three camping spaces was open. I wanted to go check out the bathroom to see if it was usable, but when I headed over, one of the campers went in - so I presume that it's usable, but I can't confirm because I didn't want to wait for them to come out. I wanted to get on the trail!

Ambrose brought his camera too. 

Ambrose and I got started on the trail and we could quickly see that some trail work had been done - on the Queens River side. The Little Queens, where we were headed, was actually blocked off by a large downed tree. We had to go around it, because there were too many branches still attached to go over or under.

Trail to the right - nicely cleared; trail to the left - practically blocked off. We went left. 

The first mile or so of trail had a pretty good scattering of downed trees. For the most part, we could just step over or under - an option that tended to be easier for me than Ambrose. But there was one downed tree that simply had too many branches. We couldn't go around towards the river because the trail was to steep that direction. Instead, we climbed up to go around and ended up doing a bit of cross-country hiking because there were more trees after that one making the trail difficult to follow.

I fit perfectly under this tree. Ambrose did not. 

Yeah, this is the trail. No easy path to get through, gotta go around.

Made it back to the trail, but there were still more logs.

That was the worst one though; after that most of the downed trees were pretty easy to get around. After we got to the bridge, the downed trees were less frequent - but not totally gone.

Last bridged crossing on this trail. 

Thimbleberries were in bloom; pretty, but not edible. 

First side stream crossing was an easy one. Ambrose and I took different paths, but both got across safely.

I was keeping an eye out for a good place to dig a hole, since I hadn't used the trailhead bathroom. I hoped to make it past the second stream crossing; there used to be a mine or a mining camp there, and there's still old equipment that hasn't been packed out. Once we got past that second crossing, I told Ambrose to go on ahead while I took care of that business.

Lots of flowers in bloom on this trip.

Second stream crossing. 

I told Ambrose to go ahead and get ready for crossing once he got to the crossing of the Little Queens River. This crossing is the one that we have to keep an eye on. Some years it's been deep and fast enough to be scary to cross. We've even done tandem crossing a few times on it for safety. But this year the water level has been really low, so we weren't worried about that.

I completed my business and kept going. When I got to the next crossing, Ambrose was ready to cross. At this particular crossing, there's a little wash of water just before a kind of island that provides a great place to sit and change into crossing shoes. Well, it used to provide a great place. There have always been ants there, but the colony has grown, and by now they've taken over the whole thing. You put your pack down, in ten seconds the thing is crawling with ants. Almost impossible to change shoes fast enough to avoid ants crawling on your feet - and biting when they get stuck in the crossing shoes.

I couldn't get into the freezing cold river water fast enough.

Ambrose was waiting in the shallow water for me to avoid the ants. 

More flowers!

After we both crossed, I declared that it was lunch time, because I was hungry. And it was almost noon. I was originally sitting kind of far away from Ambrose, but it started to sprinkle and I joined him under a tree. We ate, and Ambrose was ready to go before I was, so he left first. I didn't linger too long, but he did get a bit ahead of me.

The cloudy sky was kind of nice, because it blocked out the heat of the sun. And there were hints of blue sky on the horizon.

I caught him!

 I decided to hike with Ambrose for a while, not because I didn't have the legs to go faster, but because I wanted to spend some time with him out in the woods. We're stuck together at home pretty much 24/7 now, and while I can get annoyed with that while I'm at the house, I still like being with him when we've got wide open spaces all around us.

Poor little squirrel. Well, half a squirrel. 

The stream crossing that always seems to get Ambrose wet.

When we got to the stream that always gives Ambrose trouble, we split up. I went upstream to try to find a good crossing point and he went a bit downstream. He - surprise! - got through without getting wet or falling. I, on the other hand, managed to get some water into my right boot. But it wasn't a lot, and I didn't feel the need to say anything at the time...

At this point, I started to feel energy in my legs. I went on ahead of Ambrose and stayed ahead until I got to the next crossing of the Little Queens River. I waited for him there, and he didn't take too long to catch up.

There were a few more tree problems to get around.

Some were easier to deal with than others.

Time to cross the Little Queens again.

We made it across with no drama and took a brief respite on the other side. Not too long because we weren't far from our planned campsite, and we both wanted to get there and see if we'd be alone.

Another downed tree go around.

Ambrose struck out ahead, but I caught him.

 The sun was out, but the heat wasn't too bad. Ambrose left the stream crossing before I did, but I caught him pretty quick. I was kind of tired and ready to be done, but I think that was partially due to the fact that I knew I was so close to being able to stop.

Ninemeyer junction; almost there!

The bushes are hiding the view of the tarn, but it's still there.

The junction to Scenic Lake. 

When I got to the junction, I sat down in the shade and waited for Ambrose to catch up. I know I could have gone on to where we intended to camp, but I've learned my lesson well. I do not go on past a junction without my hiking partner. 

This spot just might do.

Once Ambrose caught up to me, we hiked on together. We took the Scenic trail over to just before it crosses the Little Queens and wandered around a bit before finding a spot that would do. The area was burned out a while ago, and I'm anticipating it won't be camp-able in another few years as trees fall down and take away all the flat spots.

Before I got the tent set up, I had to eat some dinner. For a special treat, we had ordered a pizza the night before we drove out. And boy, was it hard not to touch that delightful smelling pizza when we brought it home. But it was worth it. So. Worth. It. To eat cold pizza on the trail. I mean, leftover pizza is generally pretty good, but bringing it out to the woods gives it extra savor.

After I ate a few slices, I got to setting up the tent. It was a decent pitch; I tightened everything up just in case we got any rain, but otherwise didn't get too concerned with making it pretty. Then I got my bed all set up. And then I ate more pizza. I actually ate more of my half than Ambrose ate of his, but we both had a bit left over for breakfast the next day.