Monday, September 27, 2010

Ingall's Lake

A big group of people go out to a friend's cabin each year off of Teanaway River and camp. They always hike out to Ingall's Lake on Saturday for a good workout. This was the first year for Matt and I, but we decided to backpack out and camp overnight. The trail is about 3.5 miles to the campsites and another mile or so to Ingall's Lake. It is part of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, close to the Enchantments. This was only my second time actually backpacking and I had a great time!

Our campsite was out on this rockledge looking out right at Mt. Stuart. Gorgeous!! There were just a few trees around, and most of the trees had branches on only one side. We figured it got pretty windy up there. Little did we know that we were going to experience firsthand the crazy winds.

 We went to bed early and were woken up several times an hour because of the raging winds. I wasn't sure that the tent was even going to hold up! Around 3am or so, the rains came...hard. We couldn't help but laugh, since the day before was in the 70s and clear blue sky. We packed up in the rain and wind and left around 7am. I was so thankful for the gear we had that kept us warm and dry!

[By the way, we have this stove called the Jetboil and it is AWESOME! It boils about 2 cups of water within 2 minutes and it is very compact. Get this if you plan on camping anytime soon.]
 Mt. Stuart
 A view to the right of our campsite
 Below our campsite
 Another view of Mt. Stuart (can you believe people climb that?!)
 campsite
 Matt and his Dad, Jim, trying to figure out where the trail is to the lake
 drying my clothes on my trekking pole :)
 Ingall's Lake-about a mile from our campsite. Jim is napping on the big rock in the middle
 Lake
 Mt. Stuart behind the lake
 The huge group that went up to the lake with us
 Matt filtering water
 A nudy-butt jumping into the freezing cold lake
 Us at the lake
 Amanda, Bry, Jim, me, Matt
 Me posing at our campsite looking out at Mt. Stuart
 Looking up behind our campsite
 Gorgeous colors of the larch (sp?) trees
 The sun went down on our campsite, but was still on Stuart
Me in my new down jacket!

3 comments:

valarie said...

Wow, totally awesome! That's an experience you will never forget! i'm glad you survived!

beaucollins said...

I think that's our next backpacking trip. We're trying to find something with fish and somewhat accessible for Finn.

The Cascades are wonderful.

Stefanie said...

It'd be a fun trip for sure, Beau. You can fish at the lake, the only problem is that you technically can't have campfires above 5000' which puts a damper on things....although someone clearly had a fire at our site, so I am sure you could do it :) We're hiking out in the Enchantments next weekend for a day and I am SO excited. I hear the colors of Fall there are incredible, Bridget would love it.