Monday, April 14, 2014

Packwood Lake - Tree Challenge

We decided to test out our lightweight backpacking gear with a manageable trip to Packwood Lake. At 4.5 miles in to the lake it seemed like a perfect test area. We brought Athena along and hit the trail at 9 AM Saturday.

It wasn't long before we began encountering blown down trees. There were more we had to go over than under and Athena was opting under mostly so there was a lot of hooking and unhooking her at each log. We didn't bother counting as we headed out, but there were a lot of trees on the trail.

We also found about a mile of persistent snow at about 3 miles in that continued until the final drop in to the lake. We arrived at the lake before 11 AM and scouted around for a sunny camp site. The best one was taken by a couple of young guys so we went further around. The side we headed up was right in the wind which was blowing down across snow on the other side of the lake making it very cold.







We headed back to the other end and saw the young guys packing up so we landed there. We quickly set up the tent and blew up our new sleeping pads and tossed in the sleeping bags. Then we filtered some water and had a snack.



As long as we were in the sun it was very nice. We had taken over the fire the young guys had started and built it up nicely. The sun was high and remained on us until it began sneaking behind the trees at about 2:30. Man did it get cold fast then. We decided to test our last piece of equipment and cook up the angel hair pasta and add some chili I made and dehydrated. We were eating within 10 minutes of lighting the stove and cleaned up quickly as well.

We packed camp up and headed back down the trail. This time we decided to count the downed trees and by the time we made it back to the car we counted 47 trees on the trail that varied from a step over to one that required going off trail on a steep little downhill and using a small tree to get around.



We were de-packed and driving down the hill before 5 PM. With our exploring up the side of the lake we managed just over 10 miles total with full camping gear so we were happy with the trip.

Be very well and more soon.....

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