If I was a body of water I would totally be a high mountain lake. The ocean is filled with large creepy things like sea turtles and small creepy things like sea horses. Who wants to be known as the body of water with sea horses? The local city lakes are filled with empty beer cans and dead prostitutes. Who wants to be known as the body of water with empty beer cans lying around? And pools. Pools are just lame. I mean come on, how is swimming 20 feet and turning around, swimming 20 feet, turning around, swimmi…you get the point…fun or even enjoyable? Unless you’re a kid, then it’s not so bad. For those of you with pools, no offense, but you’re lame.
But I’m glad I’m only like 2/3 of a body of water because if I was a complete body of water I’d probably only fill a small portion of a bathtub and that’s just pitiful. Being only 2/3 water allows for cool things like bones, tendons, ligaments, fat, and huge amounts of muscle and brain.
Hmm, you may be wondering more about the adventure than my opinions concerning bodies of water. To refresh your memory but mostly add to it, this gnar-gnar epic adventch was to get into Kent Lake, a remote mountain lake near the Lionhead Unit in Priest Lake State Park in the Idaho Panhandle. You know, up in them thar parts. The word remote is not used by accident. Apparently, it took Shane and his fellow adventurers 5 or 6 years to actually get to the lake. For a few years, they tried to get in on Memorial Day and found that postholing through snow on high ridges isn’t exactly easy or totally enjoyable (although exciting in a mountain-just-kicked-my-budonkadunk way). When they did get closer in other years sans snow, they got stuck trying to rappel down cliffs with no visible way down besides eventually cutting the rope and base jumping without a parachute. While I’ve seen a few videos of base jumpers and skydivers surviving horrific falls, I think they wisely chose not to try it out, maybe just because they didn’t have a video camera on hand. Remember that time in Part 1 when I made a funny by saying Shane told me he almost died and then I was stoked to go? Well, I think Shane was referring to a 20 foot fall he took by slipping on wet rock. Weak.
For those interested in boring chronological recapitulations, I’ll now explain the trip as a boring chronological recapitulation. Except it won’t be boring because umm because yawn because excuse me because yawn ohhhh man because boring is for daytime television and I’m so not daytime television. Except my life is a little like a soap opera with all my scheming and conniving.
A little before you arrive at Lionhead at Priest Lake, you turn off and drive up a dirty bumpy road complete with fallen trees sawed off (and/or simply moved by Doug’s son, who is apparently akin to Paul Bunyan). (Not joking). From the little parking area at the end of road, you take out your scale and weigh your pack and then make bets on how heavy Doug’s pack will be, generally somewhere between 50 and 60 pounds. Ouch. Hey at least he’s soon willing to share all the tasty snacks he brought to drop some weight.
Shane, Emily, Rusty, Doug, Izzy, Leo (hidden), Rich, Ryan
From here, you hike up a cool trail intertwined with a little stream and sweet views of Priest Lake (first photo in Part 1) to the first ridge, which is probably about 2 miles? Not too bad. Ok I’m switching tenses now because I’m tired of saying you instead of me and I. Here’s my first campsite and the view I “awoke” to. Quotes because all I really did was swat at buzzing mosquitoes dive bombing my ears all night since I didn’t bring a tent or any face protection. I think I was nearing insanity by the time I got up but at least I got some mosquito-swatting muscle memory practice in.
“Bye bye trail,” said the monkeys to their trailmakers. From here to the lake it’s pure and unadulterated ridgeskimming, bushwacking, and boulderbouncing.
Ridgeskimming
Bushwacking
Boulderbouncing
And for a little extra fun and hay merma, gapjumping. I’m pretty sure that’s a couple thousand feet down there.
Gapjumping
Although it’s maybe only 3 or 4 miles from the first campsite to the ridge overlooking Kent Lake, it’s a grueling 3 or 4 miles. When I say bushwacking I mean it. You are literally forcing your own trail by smashing through bushes, squeezing between trees, slipping on, uhhh, groundbushes, for lack of a better word, and crawling over logs and boulders. This next photo is a 360 degree view from the ridge overlooking the lake. We hillwalked from the high peak to the right of the ridge where my fellow hillwalkers are and continued around the ridge on the far left and then down through the giant boulder field bordering the trees to the lake, if you can picture that in your tiny little mind’s eye. They failed before by trying to go straight down to the lake from here and they ran into cliffs everywhere. You can actually scribble your way straight down but you have to know write where to go and maybe bring an extra pair of nuts for the sketch. (Come on, admit that was at least a tad clever).
Larger Version Showing Path In Red Arrows
This blog is so manly, I’m embarrassed that you go to mine…..
derek | August 15th, 2007 at 9:50 pm |