For many years Paul has wanted to hike the 10 mile hike from Crystal Lake to Middle Fork. We thought now would be a good time to do it, because it just cooled off and in the next few weeks winter will be here. We made arrangements for Paul’s parents to watch Eli for the day and meet us at the bottom of Middle Fork that evening to pick us up.
First stop. Donuts. There is a gas station in Kamas that bakes their own donuts. These come out hot and fresh. The best donuts I have had in a while. HUGE as well. The cream cheese pastry was good, but the cinnamon roll with cream cheese icing was my favorite. Yes, I ate them both. I have to have energy to hike 10 miles, right? 🙂
32′ this morning. Not too cold. Perfect temperature for a full day of hiking. I hiked with a long sleeve waffle shirt, flannel, and light jacket. I had a half face neck thing and thin winter knit gloves I used for a little while in the morning, but other that that I stayed warm. I was quite happy. I wore more than I needed, because I would rather be too hot and remove layers, than to be cold all day.
Started out at Crystal Lake. We followed the trail to long lake loop. Which I have to mention is NOT a loop. I have that documented last year when we carried our 50lb 5 year old back out 2 miles.
Starting out. For the first mile, we passed a couple overnight tents, two fisherman, and 2 hunters coming down with their horse. After that, we were alone for the rest of the hike.
We followed the trail almost to Long lake and then turned to the right and followed a trail, but it wasn’t as well marked as the main trail.
Looking out at Long lake.
We stopped for a quick break at a pond with no name 🙂
We tried liquid I.V. I’m planning on using this for my next marathon so I thought now was a great time to try it out. This mix is supposed to hydrate 3x the hydration as water. I think it worked, but the flavor wasn’t my favorite. I had to force myself to drink it. When I want water, I just want the taste of water. I want to try this again, but I will put it in lemon lime gatorade to see if that will hide the taste.
Further along the trail was marked with cairns. We had to look for these to stay on the trail.
Found a great river down there.
Lots of river beds and streams.
Came to a rocky terrain.
Mud bogs. Perfect location for deer hunting. Paul was scouting our several locations for next year’s hunt. We were so far in, good luck getting the deer back out 🙂
We stopped for lunch. Paul pumped water.
Paul set up the solo stove and started boiling the water.
Paul wasn’t too happy with me wanting to bring the stove and pasta. With hiking 10 miles and being a little chilly, I really wanted something warm and filling, not just a cold sandwich and snacks. We tried pasta primavera. It smelled wonderful as it was hydrating.
We may have added too much water and it was pasta primavera soup 🙂 It was still good. We were both so hungry, we ate this and our sandwiches.
A little rest.
After lunch, the trail we were following became faint to not a trail at all. Every once in a while we would find the trail and other times, it looked like this. Can you spot the trail? Neither could we. See the green marker? that was an indicator that was part of the trail so we went in that direction.
Further down we stopped seeing cairns and the green makers, but started to see blue flags. So we started following those 🙂
Soon we lost the trail and all markers. We started bushwhacking through the forest. We climbed over logs and boulders. We did this for two miles.
About an hour of hard hiking, we heard rushing water and we came upon this!
Beautiful cliffs and a hidden river.
I wanted to track the miles and see how many miles we hiked, but my watch gave out. So I know we hiked 6.46 miles. I think for prime day there will be a new watch in my amazon cart 🙂
This river was the highlight of the hike. So spectacular we forgot about all the scrapes on our legs…ok my legs. I was pushing myself through the thick foliage and I had several sticker bushes come through my pants, sticks scaping my legs, it was pretty hard hiking. I really wanted to find the trail!
We were lost!
As we were walking, we were discussing if we should be noisy to notify a bear or be quiet to see a deer or a moose? We were noisy and the only animals we saw were pine hens.
Even though we didn’t see wildlife, we saw evidence of wildlife. We saw this raking tree. Elk and deer rub their antlers on trees to scrape the velvet off their antlers.
And what animal ate this? A moose! That was fun to see.
As we were meandering around the forest, every once in a while we would come across trees with two markings. Another trail marking. We followed these when we saw them.
FINALLY, we came out to the meadow! We were so excited to see this place. We only had another mile to the bottom.
And we had a trail! A glorious trail!
Does this look familiar? This is where we set up camp a few months ago when we went back packing.
Paul took 10 miles of video and pictures. I didn’t know how to include them, but to put them in one video.
The last 5 seconds is my favorite! 🙂
This was one of the best hikes we have been on. Will I hike it again? Absolutely.