The fishermen in the family have long wanted to hike into the Frank Church Wilderness, The River of No Return. The rumors of the elusive golden trout was the draw for them. For me, it was the adventure of it all and, to be honest, not wanting to miss out! The hike did not disappoint!
Just getting to the trail head was an adventure. The road is a dirt road for 25 miles or so. The first 15 miles are nice, as far as dirt roads go, although I could have done without the washboards. The next 10 miles were done at a snail's pace! I think it took us almost 3 hours to drive to the trail head from Salmon, ID. We spent the night at the trail head and got our gear all situated. We scoped out the trail map and then settled in for the night.
We woke up in the morning, had breakfast and broke camp. Ready for the trail. Or at least I thought I was ready. Really I was only sort-of ready for the trail. It was a rugged 11 miles into base camp. We started at over 8000 feet in elevation and climbed to over 9500 feet, but it wasn't straight climbing. There was a lot of steep ups, followed by steep downs, only to repeat the process for all 11 miles. We also had a pretty decent rain shower at the beginning of the hike. I was so glad that the rain only lasted about 30 minutes!
We made Birdbill Lake our base camp as it was in between the other lakes that David and Carson wanted to fish. The fishing at Birdbill was amazing, with David and Carson each catching many, many cutthroats. The mosquitoes at Birdbill, however, were awful! I don't think there is enough mosquito repellent available to keep those little suckers at bay! Carson had a mosquito net for his hammock and I wanted one, too.
Day 2 found us up and early to start our hike into a group of lakes that were supposed to be great fishing. The hike was a repeat of the day before, complete with steep, rugged terrain and some rain. The hike to Big Clear was about 2 miles and then hiking around to the other lakes was another mile or two. It probably would have been shorter if we hadn't had two little misadventures. First was taking the wrong trail as we were trying to cut over to one of the other lakes. We hiked up, up, up for about 15-20 minutes before we realized that it was too steep and not heading the way we needed to be going. After turning around, we had our second little misadventure. We came to a little lake that we thought was the lake we were hiking to and Dave started fishing. He fished that little lake hard! He changed flies about 20 times and moved all around to fish every area of that little lake. The problem was he was at the wrong lake and this was the one that contained NO FISH! Sometimes his stubbornness irritates me. I thought it was clear after about 20 minutes of fishing that this lake had no fish (based off of fishing experiences at the other lakes he had fished in the area), but he was determined to catch a fish there (because he thought he was on Glacier Lake) and worked that lake for almost an hour! Finally, Carson and I got him to admit that there were no fish in the lake and we needed to move on to the other lakes we had planned on visiting that day. With David sufficiently convinced that he was on the wrong lake, we moved on to Gooseneck Lake and then Crater Lake. The fishing was just okay at both of these lakes, and with more rain rolling in, we decided to call it a day and hiked our way back to our base camp at Birdbill. We arrived in camp just in time as the rain and wind really started to kick up. We napped in the tent as the storm raged around us. The rain broke around dinner time. We enjoyed some dinner and a bit more fishing before calling it a day. The clouds broke over night and David and Carson snuck quietly out of the tent to take some star pictures.
Day 3: the theme will always be up early and rugged hiking into yet another lake. This time the destination was Ship Island Lake. It was absolutely stunning!
David and Carson fished their way up the north shore of the lake until we got to the far end.
The fish weren't huge. And the golden trout still remained elusive. Did I say yet that I believe these particular trout are an urban legend? But the boys had an amazing time. The trail was well-defined in some places and then when we got to the far end, we were bushwhacking quite a bit. We found the outlet for Ship Island and followed Ship Island Creek for a little bit. This creek works its way down to the Salmon River, but we did not do that. Instead, we hiked our way back to the outlet and since it was a warmer day, we all took a little swim. The water was definitely chilly, but not the coldest water we have ever been in, either. Soon it was time to begin the trek back to our base camp. Along the way, we stopped at Airplane Lake just long enough for David to take a natural break and inadvertently expose himself to some ladies that were hiking along the lake shore. In his defense, we had not seen anyone all day, heard no voices, and he thought he was in an inconspicuous area. We giggled a bit about this, but also high-tailed it out of there so David didn't have to face the ladies.
We had a final, restful night at camp and talked about how this was one of our most epic adventures yet. We had an early dinner and turned in early, knowing that we would have an early start the next morning.
Day 4: up early, breakfast, broke camp and headed back up the trail towards the truck and home. Along the way, we ran into a mule train and I thought it might be nice to have a mule to carry my pack out. The boys thought that was heresy. We also ran into a solo hiker who was planning on hiking down Ship Island Creek to the Salmon River and then hoped to hitch a ride with any rafters that might be floating by. I often wonder how that worked out for that guy. After about 5 or 6 hours of hiking, we made it back to the truck completely exhausted, but also completely satisfied with knocking something off of our bucket list.
