American Lakes

Between our various injuries, an aging dog, and increasingly busy schedules, backpacking trips have been very light the last few years. We made a plan back in the spring to change that and blocked out some weekends on the calendar for camping.

For our first trip, we returned to an old favorite: The American Lakes. This is a special place for us. It's the first place we ever went camping together, and we've been up there almost every year since. For this edition, our friends Julie and Nathan joined us for the afternoon. Compared to previous years, there seemed to be a lot more water along the trail. This was great news for Banksy, who enjoyed having plenty of water to drink, and streams to stomp through.

Of all the times I've been up there I've never seen fish in the lower lakes, but this time we saw many. I'm wondering if they stocked it at some point. As it turns out, I actually forgot to pack my fly reel. (I guess I'm rusty at this whole backpacking thing.) I ended up tying a leader directly to the end of my fly rods and fishing tenkara-style, and surprisingly I caught a couple.


I don't remember the last time we hiked to the upper lake, Snow Lake, but we went up this time. It must have been a good snow year, because it was still partly covered in snow. Banksy saw a stick out in the water and couldn't stop himself from rescuing it from the icy cold water.




The evening colors are amazing here.


In the morning we walked up to a nearby snow field and had some fun sliding down. Banksy mostly had fun getting in our way and trying to tackle us.




For our first backpacking trip of the year, and first in a while, we all survived pretty well. Looking forward to another next weekend.


More photos here:

---

This was our first time up to these lakes without Kuzca, and our first backpacking trip without her in a very long time (since 2007 I think). :( We miss her, but enjoy remembering all of the great trips we shared. Here she is on a previous trip to this area.