Backpacking to Browns Lake

Christine and I took Friday off and headed for the hills. Her, Kuzca and I drove up to the Comanche Peak Wilderness and hiked in to Browns Lake. Bucket had to stay home because we didn't think he'd be able to make it. :(




I first went to Browns lake a couple years ago and have wanted to go back for a while now. You're only allowed to camp in designated sites at this lake, and we had our choice of site since we were getting there on a Friday afternoon and nobody else was there yet. We, of course, chose the most choice site. It had a great tent spot that was hidden in some tres and a separate kitchen area complete with fire ring. We even had a perfect bear bagging tree close by.

We planned ahead and picked up a backcountry cookbook so we could try some new food. For our Friday dinner, we chose a sloppy joe type of thing that turned out great. Most of it was a mixture we made before leaving and stored in a zip lock. Then we made some biscuit dough at the campsite and cooked it with the rest of the food. Mmmm, warm biscuits. And another plus was that we made it with soy crumbles instead of hamburger, so it'd be acceptable to any vegetarians we camp with.

For Saturday we had two dinner plans: Fresh fish from the lake, or prepackaged dehydrated meal from REI. We had heard the prepackaged food was actually pretty good these days and we wanted to check it out. It turns out that we were able to use both dinner plans because I caught some fish, but we were still hungry for more food.




The fishing was slow at first, but then I found the fly they wanted. After that I pulled in (I think) 5 really nice fish. One of them was full of eggs, so I decided to throw it back and hopefully help preserve the future of the lake. My good gesture was rewarded with several more fish. I'm generally a catch and release fisher so it felt a little strange to be keeping a couple. I don't think I've kept a fish since I was younger. Again, we had planned ahead and brought some spices to make blackend trout. I haven't cleaned a fish in a super long time, but I guess I did alright cleaning these two. The end result tasted soooo good. I wish we had taken some pictures. I should have maybe kept another one of the fish, but we filled our bellies with some prepackaged beef stew. It was quite good, so I think we'll try some more of those meals. They're great for cleanup because you cook them in the pouch so there's no pot to clean.

Here's the cute shot of the weekend: