Heart Lake Backpacking Trip 2009

For the past four years Ryan and I have spent our Labor Day hiking to Heart Lake in the Mallard Larkins Wilderness of Idaho.

In two posts and one video post I've shared our fun weekend, enjoy!



Here is a satellite view of our Labor Day backpacking destination of the last four years. On this map you can't see Sawtooth Saddle trail head where we park our cars and then hike 8 miles up the mountain to Heart Lake. On the way we pass Northbound Lake. From there we climb 700 feet in 2 miles up to Heart Lake. You can also see Crag Lake to the left of Heart Lake in the pic above. Ryan proposed at the look out above Crag lake one year ago!!

This year Ryan, George, Brittany, and I decided to hike to our favorite spot again.

This photo makes it easier to see the topography of the hike. Northbound lake is on the left and Heart lake is on the right. We climb switchbacks up Northbound lake's drainage creeks and then up around the back of the mountain top towering above Heart lake. Then we drop into Heart lake from trail 65 in the Mallard-Larkins Wilderness.

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The Beginning.

Field burning on the Coeur d'Alene Reservation.


The St. Joe River!!
I could stare into the crystal clear water for hours....


I'm from Idaho. I like clouds.

Beaver Creek Bridge.
This is where we leave the Red Ives Ranger Road and head up...to huckleberry country!


Beaver Creek bridge before we start the 26 mile drive up to Sawtooth Saddle trail head, from where we take trail 111 down to Sawtooth Creek the next morning. At this point we are usually driving in the dark. Ryan and I got here early and waited for George & Brittany to catch up. We left to drive to the trail head about 45 minutes before they showed up...but that turned out to be a good move on our part.

Luckily we got ahead of the horse trailers that they got stuck behind. Some guy's truck obviously couldn't pull his horse trailer up the inclines and stopped in the middle of the road while they had to wait for a half hour for him to move (George said his dash looked like "Christmas Lights" because there were so many warning lights blinking). About an hour after they made it past the horse trailers to Sawtooth Saddle the horse trailers arrived and shone their headlights right into both our pick ups where we were sleeping. They were drunk and rude. The next morning they were more civil because they weren't intoxicated but still uppity because they had horses and we just had our packs. We were glad to leave them behind at the saddle.


We made it up to the saddle around 9:45 p.m., so the first pictures I got were early the next morning as the sun slowly crept up over the mountain tops. This photo is looking in the general direction of Heart Lake.


Sawtooth Creek, the first of four river crossings until we start up the mountain toward Northbound lake. It was FREEZING cold. We had our river shoes to walk across and every one of us could not feel our feet by the time we got to the other side. It took a minute of stamping your feet to get the numb feeling to go away. That's what you call Idaho mountain water!


Sawtooth creek was so cold that we tried hopping from rock to rock at the other three creek crossings. Sometimes that is more difficult than it seems...especially if you have the shortest legs. (Sorry Britty, I had to. hehe.) We all made it with only a few more cold toes to deal with.


A moth landed on my arm, so it was time for super macro mode! It stayed there long enough for me to get the camera out, change the mode and take a few pictures. When I was done I had to blow the moth away...it liked me too much!


This year, more than any other I remember, there were mushrooms of every shape and size all over the forest and trail. It must have been a wet year?


Fawn Lake.
The "little" hike to a beautiful lake that Daddy took Gail, Jodi, Trevor, Tyler, Telynn, Corey and I on several years ago.
Shall we go back?
:)


Ryan and George pumping cold water through the water filter to drink as we climb. The next time we will pump water will be at Northbound lake.


We follow Heart Pass Trail no. 65 from Northbound Creek Trail no. 111. My Daddy gets to be looking at these signs (maybe not these exact ones, but similair) in a week while he's up in the Mallards hunting for Elk. I am jealous. :)


Awesome orange mushrooms along the trail.


Thimbleberries! Sort of like wild raspberries.


The BEST mushrooms we found along the trail. They look as if they are from a Mario video game! The colors were bright and vibrant.


Northbound Lake.


It started drizzling while we rested at Northbound so we decided it was time to solider on up the last 2 miles to Heart Lake. This photo was taken as we climb the switchbacks up to trail 65.


Heart Pass Trail marker, still on the ground after the snow pulled it down a few years ago.

Can you see Mr. Marmot? He blends in so well with the rocks! Marmots burrow among the rocks (also where they hibernate through the winter) and love to sun bath on the rocks. He sits around all day eating all the lovely vegetation around him. I envy his home in this beautiful forest.

Mr. Marmot froze as we passed on the trail. Perfect for a zoomed in photo! His coloring matches the granite rocks that make up the whole mountain, he can blend in just about anywhere.

Northbound Lake.
This year our trip was accompanied by lots of grey rain clouds. For a moment the sun was shining down at Northbound while we were getting misted by the mountain rain.

The trail up to the Heart Lake cutoff. One year it was acting as a stream, at least this year it was mostly dry. The big rocks are loose so navigating it is always interesting.

We met some donkey/horse packers right before the cutoff trail. It's always best (if you have the chance) to take off the packs and move away from the trail so as not to startle the stock. One time a few years ago another horse packer told us the protocol very nicely. He said the packs tend to make you look like an alien to the horses and they immediately assume you are a predator. If you take your backpack off and give the horse some room to walk by they do just fine.

Horse packing a human. This group was headed to the rock/stream trail you saw above. I could not imagine riding a horse down that rocky slope, that would be one scary ride!!

Heart Lake water is so beautiful. It was rippling just right the night we arrived to our favorite camp site. We were the only ones at the lake for quite awhile so we got the best camping spot at the lake. Later on in the afternoon another backpacking group set up camp down the shoreline.

Last year everything was green. This year it looks more like it has in the past. The fall colors of the mountain brush reflect on the lake and paint a watercolor. Because of the clouds and occasional rain drop my pictures do not do the lake justice this year.

Happy feet.

Our camp on night one (the only night we stayed at the lake), of our Labor Day backpacking trip. The four of us have matching tents! Our tent is about four years old now so in the next couple years we hope to get an awesome (aka, bigger) backpacking tent. This one works perfect for now though.

Heart Lake Trip to be continued...

Heart Lake Weekend - Part Two

Good Morning!

This is what we saw on Sunday morning...well, pretty much nothing. We were shrouded in fog and mountain clouds. We could barely see the edge of lake water from the tent when we woke at 7 a.m.

Brrrrrrrr. It was so cold in the morning!


A good camp fire always helps the morning chills.


Our camp in the morning, with Heart Lake hidden by the drizzling fog.


I wandered out to the lake edge and snapped a few pictures soon after I woke up. The fog was really thick, you couldn't even see halfway across the lake, only to the point just down the shoreline. It was around this time that the hikers became split in what to do--hike out the 8 miles to the trucks today or wait it out in the rain all day by the lake? Eventually the boys won out and we packed up our wet belongings to hike down the mountain. We all donned our rain jackets and covered our backpacks with rain flys and started on the trail once again.


A few hours later as we packed our gear, the fog lifted but the low clouds still stuck around. We could see most of the lake for the first time in hours! Once the fog lifted it started a continual rain. I still love the colors of the lake in the rain, it's so beautiful!


Ryan, George, and Brittany have matching rain flys on their Vaude backpacks. Mine is the only blue one. This makes good photo ops for me! This was near the same spot we had seen the marmot the day before.


Brittany, George, Mandie, & Ryan at Sawtooth Creek before we hike up 1700 feet in two miles back to Sawtooth Saddle and our trucks. We decided to document it before climbing for a seemingly endless amount of time. The trail just keeps going up, up, up!



Looking back down the trail and back towards the Heart Lake area.


Clouds above the mountains.


A chipmunk that became interested in me as I slowly went up the switchbacks.


A sage grouse that wouldn't move off the road as we left Sawtooth Saddle.


The view on our drive out of the Mallard Larkins Wilderness.


We drove down near the Red Ives Ranger Station and found a great place to camp at Line Creek Stock Camp. We already had our mattresses in the backs of the trucks from our night at the trailhead, so we parked the trucks as close to the camp fire as we could and spent Sunday night next to the St. Joe river. It was nice to listen to the river every time I woke up during the night. We pretty much had the whole campground to ourselves, there was only one other camp with stock at the other end of the campground.



The St. Joe River around 6:30 a.m.


It was very cold that morning.
Time for a fire!


Boiling water for hot morning tea and breakfast oatmeal. That always warms me up.



Daisies!!!



Bye bye stock camp! In the post below you can see the videos of Ryan and George exiting our camp site. It was an adventure!


The foot bridge near Turner Flats that Ryan jumped off a few years ago. Alas, it was too cold for me to jump off this time. ;)



The magnificent St. Joe. I am in love.



Near Moscow again. The fields are harvested and things are begining to don their fall colors. It is beautiful but I'm sad to see summer leaving us.

In the year ahead we have many exciting events in store. I'll be posting about many of them. Hopefully one of them is a lot more time in the forests next summer!

xoxo