Leaderboard

This past weekend my "brother from another mother" Bill and I did our annual backpacking trip. Usually we go into a particular basin and do bigfooting things. This year that whole area was smoked out by wildfires upwind so we stirred things up a bit. We hiked into Blue Canyon Basin in the Sky Lakes Wilderness. It is a broad, shallow glacial cirque in the head of the South Fork of Rogue River in the Cascade Range between Crater Lake to the north and Mt McLoughlin in the south. There was fairly heavy haze as we left town but it got better as we neared Blue Canyon trailhead. The trailhead is on top of a ridge. From the TH the trail drops steadily but gradually to valley floor passing one lake on the canyon wall and meeting at several at the canyon bottom. To that point the trail is heavily traveled but gets less traffic depending on which direction you choose. We headed east past some lakes under the back rim of the cirque. We passed the turnoff to Blue Canyon Lake which hangs high on the back wall of the cirque. (We came back to this trail and used it getting out of the basin .. more of that later.) On the way in we passed Horseshoe and Pear Lakes, climbed a low ridge, and dropped past Dee Lake to Island Lake. My intent was to camp at Dee Lake but we missed it ... out of sight of the trail. Though I had never been there I recognized Island Lake when we arrived. We set up camp at Island Lake, filtered some water, ate dinner, and went to bed not long after dark. Sometime not much later the wind blew what was left of the smoke out of the basin and we had a great view of stars, Jupiter, and later the moon. Saturday AM we woke up to this at Island Lake: ... no smoke!! NONE!! We got up fairly early but it was after 9:00 a by the time we had breakfast and broke camp. The day stayed clear, at least up high, but heated up a bit. We reversed course and headed back with intent to take a different trail up out of the basin. We stopped at Pear Lake for a while, then after a short walk, we stopped for lunch and a nap beside Horseshoe Lake: After a break we hiked the last half mile to the junction with the Blue Canyon Lake trail. At that junction, the fun ended and the work began. Trails within the basin were fairly level and more or less maintained. The Blue Canyon Lake trail was neither. The lake is about 2/3 of the way up the trail to the ridge but off a few hundred yards through some gnarly brush. There had been some maintenance attempted as far as the lake. It ended there. Also the yellowjackets, which had been noticeably absent, began there. We stopped about where we figured lake level should be and I bushwhacked to the lake. It was not a fun bushwhack. The lake was pretty gross. The water looked clear but the lake bottom seemed coated with a bright yellow-green plant layer. There were no obvious camping spots. I decided we should move on. The last 1/3 of the trail to the ridge, along with the Cat Hill Way trail which ran along the ridge 2.5 miles or so back to my truck, was littered with fallen logs and had a lot of impinging brush .. mostly huckleberry. That whole section was overrun with yellowjackets as well. I almost stepped in one ground nest. No stings, but .. close. From the trailhead, we drove back to where we had cell service, phoned home / checked in with Bill's wife and my GF, then drove to where he usually parks his trailer in hunting season and camped one more night to finish off the mountain house, etc. Good trip. No bigfoot. No tracks. No vocalizations (though I have not reviewed the audio recording from the night yet). No heavy "vibe" as the research area gets when they are around. Time to start figuring out something for next year ...

Yeah, I will have to epoxy the scales, then pin them. Going to practice on a cheap make your own knife kit at first. If you are on Facebook, join the two Bark River groups. That’s the best place to score out of production BRKs. I will keep my eyes peeled for one in stock.

That's all you get.

I'm a very defensive guy........on the few occasions when I'm not offensive.

Welcome TravelingFooter! Don't get discouraged by the snark, Lots of folks are jaded by all the codswallop one gets subject to in this field. Standard fare devolution into "hoax til proven legitimate" syndrome. Can't blame them really but if you stick around, you'll find it's mostly a hospitable crowd.... Now where are those pics dammit:) I jest, when, if, you are ever inclined, you have an interested audience on the edge here. And thanks for relating some of your experience.

Welcome (and welcome back for some) to the BFF, ManThing, Okie44, SasquatchTheLeg, neotoma, Grandcherokee, Rickr, Stephen, and Talpa!!! Glad you are here; do enjoy the forum and all it has to offer.