Caribou Lake

What a tease. C'mon. Give

Sorry, can't do a proper report on my phone. Will have to wait til tomorrow when I get home.

Yes, thanks to these awesome folks for a great trip!
Pics will follow in a day or so…..long drive home and I almost hit a deer on the way home ( no joke Doug and Matt !!).

Sounds excellent. I'm waiting with bated breath.

aka The Goat Trip

I've been doing these October BPLr trips for a while now. Always fun to get a bunch of us together in the actual backcountry away from the computers. This year did not disappoint. I limited the number of people this year to the maximum of one wilderness permit, 10.

The plan was to gather Thurs. night at the free and pleasant enough Goldfield Campground off Coffee Creek Rd.
I arrived after lunch and the rest trickled in during the rest of the evening.

Doug Ide, guest of honor came up with Kat and Matt Black.

Master Tony Wong and Jeremy Pendrey from the East Bay

Steven Paris made the trek down from Portland

Dave Wage and Jacob and Sandra Dinardi were also invited but vehicle issues changes their plans. They wound up on the other side of the Sawtooth Ridge hiking the Stuart Fork.

Weather was pretty perfect. I have been incredibly lucky with weather and these trips. Suppose to rain or snow there tomorrow.

With Tony and Kat along I did not take many photos as their cameras are superior to mine. plus I'm lazy like that.

Here are a few. I let the others post away.

A very dry upper Trinity Lake

Early breakfast on Friday

Working our way up through an area that burned in 2008. Shaded portions of the trail were welcomed.

No trip to the Caribou Basin is complete unless you climb the scramble to the top for the killer view of the Stuart Fork and Emerald and Sapphire Lakes. So on Saturday Tony, Jeremy and Steven joined in with myself to go see it.

On our way.

After our descent we finished off with a refreshing and invigorating swim in Upper Caribou. BRISK!
Drying off and getting ready to walk back to camp.

A truly beautiful area that I encourage you to see for yourself.

Humans 1 Deer 0

Thumbs Up! Me Like!

Ken,

Thanks for pulling off a relaxing trip.

Two days of kicking back, leisurely day hikes with grand views, refreshing dives into freezing water, making new friends around late night campfires…..poor Kat having to put up with a bunch of SOBs.

Weird not to be hiking all day in a death march and RELAXING….what a new and novel concept for me!

Funny how there were so many Zelph Starlyte alcohol stoves in use.

Anyway, I have a few hundred photos.

Getting home at about 9:30 pm tonight.

After dinner, I will see if I can figure out how to use Photoshop Lightroom to down size all the pictures small enough so that they can be uploaded to BPL in the Photo Gallery section.

Will need your help with the naming of places and things as I did not have a map….I just tried to keep up with everyone else so I would not be left behind to die. :)

Had a great time….thanks for showing me your special place.

Only my 2nd trip to the Trinity Alps.

Great making new friends and seeing old ones.

Tony

"Had a great time….thanks for showing me your special place."

I assume he did that while you guys were swimming. Glad I didn't see it…..

Edit to add: No wonder he moved his shelter nearer yours on the second night……

Doug,

Don't be jealous.

He has a Solo Mid XL…..what do you have?

Tony

Thanks Ken for hosting another great trip to one of my favorite places :)

Fire master Tony made sure we stayed toasty.

I hiked up to Upper Caribou in the morning for a solo swim….

Hi everyone. Sorry we missed you! It turned out that David's car wasn't up for the long ride out coffee creek road, so we had to come up with a plan B. As Ken mentioned already, this involved us bailing out and heading back down the road to Stuart Fork TH. We hiked into Morris Meadow, mostly after dark and had a late dinner. It was frustrating to miss you guys but at the same time it was just good to stretch our legs and enjoy the time outside after a long day in the car.

We thought we'd give the rock scramble a shot based on a hunch that you might hike to Upper Caribou. Our plan was to hang at the ridge and hollar down, mostly yelling crazy sh!t at Doug. If we remained unseen then we wouldn't reveal ourselves and let him wonder who had tracked him into the Trinities to troll him :)

Unfortunately once again our (evil) plan didn't come to fruition. We got about 100 yards below the summit and the going was getting a little dicey for Sandra with her short legs and fear of heights (which you might not guess she has based on how well she did getting up there). We had lunch, took a silly photo and made our way back to camp together for a relaxing evening. Saw a bunch of deer, no bears, & Sandra spotted a giant salamander of some type (12 inches or so!).

The Stuart Fork is beautiful as always and the creek was running well, if not a little low – despite the eerily empty lake!

– Jacob.

Nice photos Ken & Kat.

Here are a few of us on the rock scramble…

It could have happened to anyone.

After all, it was pretty dark. We were tired. Anyone could have missed a turn. And then taken a wrong turn. And had a somewhat violent encounter with a suicidal fawn. And a near miss with an obstinate skunk. Anyone.

Only this time it was Kat.

We started from the San Francisco airport at around 3:30 p.m. on Thursday. It took a couple of hours just to get away from San Fran – to an outsider like me the SF skyline consists of the tops of various vehicles sandwiched together, barely moving, for miles on end. Once free of the morass of traffic, we stopped briefly for dinner at THE Cali burger joint, then grabbed a coffee and a bottle of 16-year-old Aberlour and continued our trek north.

We chatted and laughed quite a bit, and somewhere amidst that conversation Kat convinced Matt and I that we never wanted to eat goat cheese again. But that’s a story for Kat to tell…

It was dark by the time we stopped for gas, and Kat took the wheel from Matt for the rest of the trip. We made it to Redding okay, but somewhere between Redding and Weaverville we missed a turn and ended up in the middle of nowhere, near a lake, where deer by the dozens lounged on porches playing the banjo while asking goats to squeal like pigs. Okay, I made that last part up. But not the deer by the dozens. They were all over the place.

Realizing our error (thanks to my iPhone and Apple maps), we turned around and sped back toward whence we came. And that’s when the suicidal fawn darted from the darkened roadside and ran into the side of Matt’s Forester. Seriously. We didn’t run into it, it ran into us. Kat was convinced that the collision probably killed it. I figured we probably just, you know, put it in a wheelchair for life or something. After all, there were no dents in Matt’s car, no new ones anyway. And no blood.

Regardless, after finally finding the road we’d been looking for, we took a left and continued on toward Weaverville. Too bad we should have taken a right. We realized our mistake when we got to Weaverville, turned around and headed back into the darkness yet again.

We finally found the road leading to the campground where we’d meet the others, turned down it and rolled into the campground a bit after 11 p.m. Such an adventure already, and we hadn’t even started backpacking yet.

We woke to a chilly but gorgeous morning, and after breakfast and coffee headed off up the road to the Caribou Lake trailhead. Wisely, Ken and Kat had left before everyone else and bombed up the rutted, dirt road. Matt and I pulled out next, then Tony, followed by Steven. Matt and I stopped briefly to check on a noise coming from under the car, and ended up passed by Tony and Steven. Big mistake.

We learned why Tony likes to hike fast – he drives like my grandmother. At one point I thought about jogging next to his car, since I don’t think he was moving much faster than my jogging speed. And I jog slow.

Twelve miles later, after counting individual blades of grass that we passed and such, we arrived at the trailhead and headed off on our adventure. We really lucked out on the weather, sunny days in the 70s and clear nights around 40.

The hike to Caribou Lake is pretty much all uphill, but generally not all that steep. It’s a winding hike through forests and, near the top, granite fields. A short distance from the lake you hit a crest of sorts and descend to Lower Caribou and Snowslide lakes. The view on the way down is stunning.

We set up camp between Lower Caribou and Snowslide, right next to Snowslide. We had the place to ourselves on this Friday, and we busily set about being lazy. We dawdled as we set up our shelters (three of us hanging, the rest on the ground). We milled about the large, stone table. We delighted in finding three car-camping chairs left behind by others. We wondered where the hell Matt was.

He had hung around the trailhead for a bit, then taken a different route to the lake. A more strenuous one. Strenuous enough to make him do a Dorothy and fall asleep in a meadow for a bit. But he eventually made it to our gathering.

We saw only one other hiker as he passed by our encampment. The leisurely day was just what I needed, and I reveled in the scenery and camaraderie. Since there seemed to be no fire ban, Tony got a small fire going and we sat around watching darkness, and feeling the chilled air, descend around us – drinking, laughing, swapping stories.

At one point Jeremy saw a lone headlamp on a hill overlooking our gathering, and pointing directly at us. Ken went to find out who it might be, but the headlamp, and whoever was wearing it, suddenly disappeared. But since we didn’t hear hatchet or chainsaw sounds, or unsuspecting teenagers wandering around in the dark, we figured we were okay. Besides, I keep an Abba album on my iPhone as a threat deterrent. There’s nothing like “Fernando” cranked to repel any would be attacker. And any eligible female, for that matter, but that’s a different story.

We continued our leisurely pace the next day, taking our time getting out of our warm quilts/sleeping bags and making breakfast. Tony got another small fire going and we settled into the day.

We decided to head up to Upper Caribou Lake to mill about for a bit. Jeremy, Steven, Tony and Ken hiked up the rock scramble for the views. Kat, Matt and I stopped at the end of Upper Caribou for a chilly, refreshing swim. Kat and I discovered that Matt had a soul patch in a rather unusual place, but that’s a story for Matt to tell…

We headed back down the lake and stopped at a wonderfully picturesque place for lunch, and were soon joined by the others. Jeremy, Tony, Ken, Steven and I hopped in the lake for a bit more swimming, then after sunning ourselves for awhile headed back to our camp at Snowslide.

Once back at camp the weekend interlopers began to file by our shelters. A large group of young women tramped by and stopped at the end of Snowslide for a bit of swimming and a lot of loud laughter. Numerous others passed by, and we began to wonder if the quietude of the previous evening would be broken this evening.

But as darkness once again visited our camp, the only voices we heard were our own. Soon, the sky began to fill with clouds, obscuring the stars. We thought we’d miss the coming bad weather, due Tuesday, but now we began to wonder if the rain would come early. Ken, who had set up his Solomid XL in a low area, decided to move to higher ground. Jeremy and I decided to wait for a bit before stringing up our tarps. Our wait was justified.

A stiff wind chilled us, but also moved the clouds away to once again reveal a star-studded sky. We were visited by a few deer, shortly thereafter retreating to our beds. It was quite windy overnight – we were surprised when nothing had blown away by morning.

Another lazy breakfast, and then we packed up and began heading up the trail, back to the cars. Jeremy, Tony and Steven took the high route back (Old Caribou Lake Trail), but caught up to Kat and I about 45 minutes from the cars. Steven was regaling Tony and Jeremy with some tale about a Columbian woman and a German woman, but that would be Steven’s story to tell…

Back at the cars, hugs and handshakes all around, and soon we were heading back to civilization. This trip was timed pretty perfectly for me – I really needed to get away and get into the wilderness. Thanks to Ken for setting it up and all the rest of my wonderful compatriots for sharing a bit of your time and a lot of laughter with me. It was much appreciated.

And that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Great to see you all, had a blast.

No big deal about the car, Kat. Luckily the poor li'l varmint ricocheted off the fender I already trashed. Doug and I are pretty sure you merely maimed that deer. I'm sure it'll be fine what with the drought and winter coming…

I have nothing really to add to Doug's tale and Kat's pics and what I'm sure will be a very detailed photo essay by Tony posted sometime in 2024, but since I was on the trip I feel like I should post, and besides it's probably my first post of the decade or something like that.

Anyway, great trip. Ken, Thanks for having me.

Doug wins the most dedicated award for crossing the fly-over states just to swear at/with us for an entire weekend. I truly feel better after an entire weekend of f bombs knowing I'm in good company who can dish it out.

Kat is a saint for putting up with all that testosterone, though we tried to get rid of it by very cold swims.

. . . Saw some sheep on the way home; not exactly goats, but got me thinking.

Cheers to all until next season, raise your Torpedo and take a swig.

Jeremy.

"Sir Doug Ide. Don't be fooled by the clothes…he took them all off anyway,.."

Without warning, no less. Matt won't eat anything from Pillsbury for quite some time, thanks to me….

Actually I've sworn off eating anything made from dough, for life.

Guys, we talked about this. First rule of Caribou Lake was "Don't talk about Caribou Lake." Second rule of Caribou Lake was "Don't talk about Caribou Lake." But as you've already talked, I'll add my photos tomorrow.

It was wonderful to see most of you again and great to meet Jeremy and Tony (well, we talked for about 1 minute at the last GGG). It was disappointing not to see David, Jacob and Sandra again but I'm glad you three were able to salvage something for the (probably) last great weather weekend for the Trinity Alps.

I will quickly say how nice it is to be with like-minded easy-going people doing something you love.

Gee, thanks, Steven, nice to see you too.

"It was wonderful to see most of you again and great to meet Jeremy and Tony (well, we talked for about 1 minute at the last GGG)."

Hmmmm. That leaves four of us that fall under the "wonderful to see most of you….."

We know it's always nice to see Ken and Kat. That leaves you and me Matt…..

Beautiful pictures and what a great group! Now if you could only convince Katharina to stop swerving at the wildlife…

Can't mean me, Doug. I'm easy on the eyes and a delight to be around. At a distance and so long as I don't speak.

Ian, your avatar is totally freaking me out for reasons I can't get into on a public forum.

You guys sure know how to have a good time.

I was hoping to get there and find you at camp Tom. No joke.