DAA
Member
- Joined
- Jun 14, 2012
- Messages
- 715
My son and I took our first backpacking trip this weekend. Being our first, I was looking for somewhere that looked relatively easy. Easy on the eyes, easy to get to, easy to find a good camp site, easy to get water, etc. You get the idea - easy 
.
Oh, and decent fishing too!
Between the great trip reports I've read here and the Probst book, I narrowed it down to the Stillwater Fork from Christmas Meadows to Amethyst Basin for our first walk. Camping at lake BR24, specifically.
Logan had his last final on Fri. and texted me when he was on his way home from school so I could bail from work at the same time. We both got home, tossed our packs and a cooler in the vehicle and bombed out of here, arriving at the TH at 4:00 pm.
The plan was to go easy and not worry about making it all the way to BR24 on Friday night. If we did, great. But, if we didn't, just as great. Although neither of us has BP'd before, I do a longish day hike once in awhile and knew the hike itself wasn't going to be hard for me. But Logan doesn't/hasn't done any long walks, let alone carrying a pack (his weighed 23 lbs), so I was determined to keep the pace liesurely and relaxed, and make sure he wasn't suffering, and just not worry about how far we got.
Here I am at the trail junction to Amethyst.
And here is Logan after our first rest break part way up the steep section after the junction.
After we topped out the steep section, we started seeing plenty of great looking camp spots along the trail. Logan wasn't sure if he wanted to try for BR24 or just take one of the nice spots we were seeing and call it good for the night. We took another break and I did a little recon and located a killer site, completely hidden from the trail. When I got back to Logan and told him about it, he asked how much longer I thought to BR24 and I told him probably not more than an hour - and he decided we should just truck on all the way there.
And so, it wasn't long before we were breaking out into the big beautiful meadows right below BR24.
And crossing the creek.
Then we had arrived at BR24 and dropped our packs while I did a quick scout around the NW side of the lake checking out camp site prospects. There were several very nice looking sites, but they were all pretty close together and I had a feeling if we took one we'd end up with next door neighbors close enough to hear me snore... So we grabbed our packs and headed over to the SE side, which was more rocky and where there weren't as many sites and which weren't quite as plush, but I liked our chances of not ending up with anyone else too close by.
So here is where we ended up, on the SE side of BR24.
And a self portrait of me having a celebratory cigar with my celebratory Black Bush...
As it turned out, we appeared to have BR24 all to ourselves at least until we went to bed. We slept in as late as we could the next morning - which meant we were up at about 7:30. Then after breakfast and a couple cups of coffee laying on a big rock in the sun puffing a nice cigar for me, hot chocolate and tunes on his 'pod for Logan, we loaded up only what we'd need for fishing and boogied on up to Amethyst lake.
Our first view of Amethyst.
We didn't see anyone else there when we arrive and had been fishing a couple of hours before other folks started showing up. The fishing was red hot for itty-bitty brookies. We caught a couple dozen like this.
We kept only enough for shore lunch.
When we got back to camp, there were a couple tents that had sprouted on the other side of the lake, but still nobody camped near us. We mostly just lounged around the rest of the day.
Although we did rouse ourselves long enough to go try the fishing on BR24. It was a lot slower than Amethyst, but the brookies were about twice the size.
And that's about all there is to tell. We had another fine freeze dried dinner, followed by swilling generous amounts of Irish whiskey and cigar smoking by me, hot chocolate drinking and freeze dried double chocolate cheesecake eating by Logan. Followed by another great nights sleep. Again, sleeping in as late as we could before getting up to eat breakfast, strike camp and hike back to the vehicle where a cold Dr. Pepper awaited my son and a cold beer awaited me.
By 2:00 we were back out to the highway and rolling down into the smoky furnace of the Valley. The only part of the trip that sucked - it having to end...
- DAA
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.Oh, and decent fishing too!
Between the great trip reports I've read here and the Probst book, I narrowed it down to the Stillwater Fork from Christmas Meadows to Amethyst Basin for our first walk. Camping at lake BR24, specifically.
Logan had his last final on Fri. and texted me when he was on his way home from school so I could bail from work at the same time. We both got home, tossed our packs and a cooler in the vehicle and bombed out of here, arriving at the TH at 4:00 pm.
The plan was to go easy and not worry about making it all the way to BR24 on Friday night. If we did, great. But, if we didn't, just as great. Although neither of us has BP'd before, I do a longish day hike once in awhile and knew the hike itself wasn't going to be hard for me. But Logan doesn't/hasn't done any long walks, let alone carrying a pack (his weighed 23 lbs), so I was determined to keep the pace liesurely and relaxed, and make sure he wasn't suffering, and just not worry about how far we got.
Here I am at the trail junction to Amethyst.
And here is Logan after our first rest break part way up the steep section after the junction.
After we topped out the steep section, we started seeing plenty of great looking camp spots along the trail. Logan wasn't sure if he wanted to try for BR24 or just take one of the nice spots we were seeing and call it good for the night. We took another break and I did a little recon and located a killer site, completely hidden from the trail. When I got back to Logan and told him about it, he asked how much longer I thought to BR24 and I told him probably not more than an hour - and he decided we should just truck on all the way there.
And so, it wasn't long before we were breaking out into the big beautiful meadows right below BR24.
And crossing the creek.
Then we had arrived at BR24 and dropped our packs while I did a quick scout around the NW side of the lake checking out camp site prospects. There were several very nice looking sites, but they were all pretty close together and I had a feeling if we took one we'd end up with next door neighbors close enough to hear me snore... So we grabbed our packs and headed over to the SE side, which was more rocky and where there weren't as many sites and which weren't quite as plush, but I liked our chances of not ending up with anyone else too close by.
So here is where we ended up, on the SE side of BR24.
And a self portrait of me having a celebratory cigar with my celebratory Black Bush...
As it turned out, we appeared to have BR24 all to ourselves at least until we went to bed. We slept in as late as we could the next morning - which meant we were up at about 7:30. Then after breakfast and a couple cups of coffee laying on a big rock in the sun puffing a nice cigar for me, hot chocolate and tunes on his 'pod for Logan, we loaded up only what we'd need for fishing and boogied on up to Amethyst lake.
Our first view of Amethyst.
We didn't see anyone else there when we arrive and had been fishing a couple of hours before other folks started showing up. The fishing was red hot for itty-bitty brookies. We caught a couple dozen like this.
We kept only enough for shore lunch.
When we got back to camp, there were a couple tents that had sprouted on the other side of the lake, but still nobody camped near us. We mostly just lounged around the rest of the day.
Although we did rouse ourselves long enough to go try the fishing on BR24. It was a lot slower than Amethyst, but the brookies were about twice the size.
And that's about all there is to tell. We had another fine freeze dried dinner, followed by swilling generous amounts of Irish whiskey and cigar smoking by me, hot chocolate drinking and freeze dried double chocolate cheesecake eating by Logan. Followed by another great nights sleep. Again, sleeping in as late as we could before getting up to eat breakfast, strike camp and hike back to the vehicle where a cold Dr. Pepper awaited my son and a cold beer awaited me.
By 2:00 we were back out to the highway and rolling down into the smoky furnace of the Valley. The only part of the trip that sucked - it having to end...
- DAA
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