Lake Schmidell Desolation Wilderness Backpacking

Earlier in August we did a one night backpacking trip to Lake Schmidell via Rockbound pass. It was awesome! (We had originally attempted this same trip on Memorial Day weekend.) The hike in is moderate (hiking over the pass was hot), and the lakes available for swimming were awesome. On Saturday we hiked straight through (just over 8 miles) to Schmidell, and spent the afternoon swimming and floating around in the lake. On Sunday, we stopped at Lake Lois, Upper Doris, and Maude for a swim on our way out. Our favorite lake for swimming was Upper Doris--it had awesome jumping rocks. Looked like there was some good camping in that area too.

Carex and Spencer (the dogs) came with us. This was Carex's first hike since her surgery and she did *great*! And, amazingly, she even went swimming with us three times, which was three times more than ever before! Totally cool.

Food details...(since we like to eat well and DIY) For lunch, we brought packets of salmon with dill triscuits. We brought our homemade dehydrated tacos for dinner--dehydrated black beans, ground meat, and salsa, all rehydrated with boiling water. We added a taco seasonings, a little shredded cheddar, avocado, cherry tomatoes, and chopped cabbage. On the side--margaritas. (Though, amazingly the lake was so warm it didn't do a very good job of cooling our tequila!) For dessert, chocolate pudding with powdered milk, graham crackers, and chocolate chips. Breakfast was oatmeal with powdered milk, whey protein powder, cinnamon-brown sugar, and dried fruit. Snacks included two kinds of trail mix, dried fruit, beef jerky, and homemade fruit leathers.

On the trail. In love with granite.

Hiking up Rockbound Pass.

After our first swim in Schmidell, we explored the lake a bit and then carried our gear to our home for the night. Note that we brought our sun hats! So comfy to wear around camp.

We used our Thermarests as lake floats. Adam went out on his first, then we decided to both use them to get to the rock island close to our camping spot. 

Just a little relaxin',

Sunrise.

Our campsite in the morning before packing up and hiking out.

On the hike out at Lake Lois. 

Canyon Creek Lakes Day Hike

After our backpacking trip up Stuart Fork and out Stoney Ridge, we decided to take the last day of our vacation and hike up to the Canyon Creek Lakes as a day hike. Mind you, we are a little crazy--this hike is about 17 miles round trip. We were really tired at the end of the day!!

We loved this hike. The Canyon Creek Lakes area is beautiful, and the river (when the trail is close or overlooks it) is gorgeous. We decided we'd definitely put this on our "we'd backpack this area to explore more" list. It's popular, but we did this hike on the 4th of July and only saw 2 tents set up! We did see a good bunch of people hiking, but it seems like there was plenty of room to spread out. We thought some of the sites along the river would be great if you just wanted to hang out by the river (possibly with your kids). It's not a difficult hike, and the way in is definitely a little more difficult than the hike out (downhill on the way out).

Here are a few photos:

At a waterfall below the first Canyon Creek Lake.

We took too many photos from the same location! 

But you can see the beauty of the steep granite surrounding the lakes: