2nd Annual Idaho Hang Trip Report (as usual lots of pics!)

Another Idaho Hang is in the books and it was a great trip. Loads of fun with old friends and new. In attendance were my self, KSC, MuseJr, Weird1, and DblHammock caught up with us for the last couple days.

On Wednesday morning the 7th calls all across the west were flying back and forth to start working at coordinating when and where we were all going to meet up. Weird1 was set to arrive here early in the morning to follow me the last couple hundred miles up to the Sawtooths, having ridden his motorcycle across central Oregon the afternoon before. MuseJr was in route across northern Utah. KSC was doing final prep to hit the road in Nevada.

After a few texts and a few calls that kept getting dropped Weird1 and I rolled into SnowBunny Burgers in Haily to meet up with MuseJr for some lunch. We then wandered our way north, picking up fishing licenses and fuel before working our way up along the Wood River in search of trout.

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Coming up empty handed and with KSC catching up with us we decided to head the last few miles up the road, over the pass and into the Sawtooth Valley. We swung into Smiley Creek Lodge for a early dinner and then cruised the last few miles to the campground at Red Fish Lake.

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Hammocks were hung well away from the fire with care and we all enjoyed a few brewed beverages and some desert. Everyone had brought a BB to hang in, though tarps and insulation ran the spread of most of the HF vendors. The temp overnight dropped to a cool 32 degrees that got everyone up early to start packing for the first day of hiking. We swung into the Red Fish Lodge for breakfast before hitting the dock to take the shuttle boat 4 miles across the lake to the trail head.

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Soon we were at the wilderness area boundary just outside of the small campground at the dock.

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And before long we were getting treated to amazing scenery all the way along the trail as we climbed away from the lake.

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Photo: MuseJr.

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Photo: MuseJr.

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The miles of trail slowly started to add up and then the switch backs that would take us up out of the valley floor and to Alpine lake started.

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Photo: MuseJr.

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After what seemed like 50 switch backs (though the guide book says 20 :mellow:) we began to top out on the hill and were soon along the shore of Alpine lake.

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A small fire and dinner as dark settled over the valley and our camp tucked into a small point along the lake across from the more heavily used sites along the trail.

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The sun came up early on Friday along with a quick breakfast and plans started to form. Musejr's knee had started bothering him and Weird1 was worn from the hike in. KSC and I decided to work our way to the Upper Red Fish lakes as a day hike. As the crow flys they were only about 1 mile away but we new we were going to have to work to get to them. A large wall of rock split the valley we were in with the next one over where the 2 upper Red Fish lakes sat. After studying the map for a bit we chose to hike out to the hill side above the switch backs and work our way along off trail above the valley.

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After a couple hours of working our way along the hill side we finally crested a small rise and spotted the first of the lakes. Soon we were strolling the last steps down to the shore and quickly rigging up our fishing gear. It did not take more than a moment before I was rewarded for the hike with a couple of nice Cutthroats on the end of my Tenkara rod.

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We strolled over a small hill that separates the two lakes by only a few hundred feet. I quickly extended my rod and as I saw fish swarming everywhere along the shore within easy reach of my line. For the next hour I pulled fish after fish out of the lake.

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I took a short break to catch up with KSC who was setting up to make some mini pizzas following the guidance of Jbehun who made them on the trail during last years hang. Man they hit the spot and I was back out chasing fish for another hour until we decided it was time to head back to camp, giving ourselves plenty of time to make it before dark.


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We climbed steadily above the lakes for probably a half mile before the pass that we were headed for came into view above us.

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As we worked our way higher and higher the perspective of the surrounding peaks kept changing.

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Finally we crested the ridge at the pass to catch sight all the way back down to Red Fish lake across the hanging valley where Alpine lake waited for us below.

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Now the real work of getting back to camp would start. The decent down this side of the pass was partially still covered in snow and hundreds of feet in elevation to descend over loose often sandy scree.

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But as the afternoon light changed it was an amazing spot to witness the mountains working their magic.

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Though tiring the decent went smoothly and we were soon strolling into camp, sharing the experiences and photos with Muse and Weird1. Again a good time was had sitting around the evening fire as the full moon rose above camp.

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Saturday started as each day of the hang before had, with brilliant sun shine that lit up the cliffs above the glass still lake.

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Sun up from my hammock.

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Though the course of the day I fished from the outlet stream on logs that created great spots to cast to the small brook trout that filled the lake. KSC had decided to hike the trail on over to the next lakes for a look around and returned with tails of beautiful blue water and good trail.

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But as the day wore on a couple of quick but strong storms passed over the lake with light rain and strong winds.

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The storms passed and the day returned to a calm evening and again more lolygagging around the fire into the evening.

As the sun came up on Sunday we were all busy packing our gear and getting ready for the hike out. We hoped to cover the miles back to the boat dock in time to catch the 12:00 shuttle.

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Muse set out down the trail at 8:40, Weird1 and I hit the trail 20 minutes later to give him a good head start with his knee still sore, KSC was right on our heels.

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We hammered our way down the trail at a solid pace and hit the dock just as a group was unloading from the boat just before 12. With our packs stowed in the front we were soon looking back as the dock grew smaller and we picked up speed for the 10 minute ride back to the lodge.

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A late breakfast at the Lodge and we strolled back to the trail head parking area to search for Dblhammocks truck. Finding it parked right next to ours we wondered where we missed him on the trail. KSC loaded up to head home as he had work first thing in the morning, while we made a quick trip to Stanley for some supplies and phone calls home to let everyone know we were off the trail. Back at the trail head we waited for a couple hours before making the coin flip decide if we were staying close by in hopes of still catching Dbl or trying to leave a note on how to get to Grandjean...our planned destination on the other side of the Sawtooths for a couple more nights. We ended up sticking around Red Fish and soon after Dbl made it out and we got to hang out for the night.

In the morning Weird1 packed his gear and got set to head out to finish his huge motorcycle loop across Idaho into the Tetons and Yellowstone, up the edge of Montana, slip across Canada and drop back south though Washington and Oregon to Bend.

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Muse, Dblhammock and I loaded up shortly after to head for Grandjean for some fishing in the Payette river and a much anticipated soak in Sacajawea hot springs.

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We each picked up several nice fish over the coarse of several hours of fishing with a short lunch/rain break.

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We all fished with Tenkara gear and worked our way up stream picking off fish in most of the small pools of slack water behind rocks and at times even a few here and there in the flats.

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As the sun began to set we called it a night for fishing and drive about 2 miles down river from the campground to the hot springs for a very relaxing soak next to the river.

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In the morning we all decided that it was time to point our vehicles towards our respective homes.

As I headed home the itch to check out some very fishy looking water puller my car over along the hwy.

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Very nice and strong Brooks and Rainbows from a couple small creeks along the way home.



MuseJr. Grabbed some pics of everyone's hammock set up over the coarse of the hang.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-9...8/s720/047.JPGMuseJr's BB with Te-Wa UQ, AHE Shangri La tarp.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-1...s/s720/045.JPGKSC's BB under a WB BigMamaJama tarp with AHE FlameThrower UQ.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-5...4/s720/059.JPGWeird1's Full WB rig. :sleep:

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PG's rig....with visitor considering hanging as a better option that sleeping in the dirt. AHE hammock, Shangri La Tarp, TQ and UQ.




Once again the Idaho Hang was a great event with wonderful company. Thanks to each of you for coming. It was great to hang with some new friends as well as get a chance to catch up with both KSC and Muse. Plans were already getting hashed out for next year :cool:....it's only 356 days until September 5th 2012 :D

Wow.......

Awesome trip, Sorry I had to miss it..

Looks like an awesome trip. The pics are amazing!

Since I can't hang in a beautiful new location every weekend, I enjoy living vicariously through others. Thanks for sharing!

Great trip report. I want to go. Maybe next year.

Very nice paul. Great report awesome pictures. I hope KSC didn't get into to much trouble with all that **** fine gear!

Yeah Baby! Y'alls pics- probably with a real camera- were so much better than mine. Everything about your trip looked identical to mine until you turned up(turned right, and I think more or less west/SW) on the trail to Alpine Lake. Good to know there is good hanging up there also, I had been wondering. If you had looked to your left and straight down hill about 600 ft as the crow flies, and even less in elevation, you would have been looking right down on the meadow we camped in the 1st night on the trail. Then we went left across Redfish creek where you went right, and we went on up to the Cramer lakes area.

But I am getting a kick at looking at all of the nice pics( mostly/all by MuseJr?) of this fantastic bunch of mountains and crystal clear lakes and streams.

Where are these upper Red Fish lakes you day hiked to and fished?

And did I understand you to say you made pizza after day hiking to to these lakes?

Great trip report Paul. I can't wait until we can do this again next year. I thought I would add a couple of pictures of Baron Lakes which I hiked to on Saturday. This is beautiful country.

Wait just a sec while I pop my eyes back into my head...... OK, that's better.

WOW!!! That's some awesome awesomeness! If I were there, you would have to pinch me to make sure I wasn't dreaming! Thank you, thank you, thank you for all those gorgeous pictures!