Wow, what an amazing time this trip was. Last Thursday and Friday BJ and I took a little 2 day backpacking trip in the Selkirk mountains in North Idaho. We’ve been doing quite a bit of hiking around with our geocaching expeditions, but this was our first attempt at a true backpacking adventure. Boy, was it worth the trip. I had picked up booklet from the Bonners Ferry Ranger District that had some trails in it. One was to Big Fisher Lake. I did a bit of Googleing and a bit of map work with Google Earth to figure out what it would be like going to the lake. I found one site that had a decent amount of information, but it was hard to find any details about the trip. We decided that it sounded like a good destination a few weeks back. Then we planned. We tried to figure out what we would need to take and if we would be able to make it all the way up there. After borrowing a few needed camping supplies from the Bro we finally rounded up everything we needed.
After dropping the kidos off at the in-laws in the morning, we started our 2 ½ hour drive from home to the trailhead. The last 9 miles of the road was a dusty Forest Service road that climbed quite a ways up to the trailhead. Once we got there we were pleasantly surprised to only find one car parked in one of the 10 spots at the trailhead. We really wanted to be the only ones up on the mountain. We strapped on our gear and headed up the trail.
The trail starts at 5,300ft and keeps on climbing. We did notice the effects of the high altitude even though we’re at about 2,400ft at home. The weather was perfect for hiking, probably mid 60’s to low 70’s. The views from the first part of the trail told us that it was going to be a great trip.
After a couple hours of hiking we arrived at the first alpine lake on the trail, Trout Lake. This would have been an alternative camp site if we didn’t think we could make it the full 5.3 miles to Big Fisher Lake. This was were we met up with the people from the other car at the trailhead. It turned out to only be a couple of guys on a day hike doing some fishing. We still had energy when we arrived so we marched on. We knew that the last half of the trail was going to be tough, and it didn’t let us down. About a half a mile from the peak we were getting pretty tired, but we kept pushing on.
At mile 4.6 we reached the top of the trail, 7,386ft. We looked over the edge and there lay Big Fisher Lake some 700ft below. The view was amazing from the top.
We were able to see past the 11 miles we were from the Canadian border and past Creston BC. We didn’t realize it until we had gotten home that we were looking into Canada. Getting to this point was worth the trip in itself.
We hiked the last half a mile down to the lake and set up camp in one of the nice little rustic sites that previous campers had put together. We found a spot just off the lake edge. We took off the packs and started looking around for a good fishing spot. We walked down to the stream that exits the lake where the web site had pointed out and to our surprise we saw tons of little cutthroat trout swimming around in the shallows. The water was so crystal clear that we scarred them by walking up to the banks. We broke out the poles and tossed in the lines.
After a couple of hours, interrupted a couple of times by rain, we ended up landing 5 nice size little trout (Actually it was 6, but my little 3 incher had to go back).
We went back to camp and threw them over the fire and had ourselves a nice little meal.
After a couple of hours of sitting around the fire resting our feet, we decided it was time to hang our food up in the trees to avoid the curious bear and crawl into bed. That’s when the fun started ;). No, not that. We found out that night that the weather in the mountains can be very unpredictable. The sky opened up and we found ourselves in the worst storm I have ever been in, tent or no tent. It rained and rained and rained. The lightning flashed constantly and the thunder never stopped. It actually was so close together it sounded like a train was driving through the tent. Four hours later with no sleep (by now it was 2am) everything was wet. No tent made by man would have survived that storm. Everything that was along the outside edges of the tent was wet, including our sleeping bags. We finally settled down and shivered the rest of the night in the damp air and sleeping bags. Waking up the next morning we discovered puddles in the tent. I picked up one of my boots that somehow came out from under my rain coat, and poured the extra water out of it. Yes, the boot was inside the tent during the night. Inspecting the campsite we found that we had a river running through it the night before. Even with all of that, we survived and still had fun. We could have done with a bit more sleep and been a bit warmer, but that’s camping for ya.
We packed up camp, rescued our food bag from the trees it was hanging from, ate our bagels and hit the trail. Climbing out of the bowl took a bit of work as we were still a bit tired from the hike the day before, but we knew it was all downhill on the way back to the car. The day was beautiful once again and seemed a bit more clear with the rain. We quickly made the way down the mountain stopping far less often for breaks. When crossing one of the many little wooden bridges that are on the trail, BJ noticed something in the mud and I almost stepped on it before she could tell me to stop. Personally, this is as close as I want to get to a bear that’s not in a zoo.
This was the only sign we had seen and it turned out to be a black bear, not the famous grizzly that the signs along the road had warned us about. I would love to see one of these creatures, but I think I would like it if I was in a big Jeep like they have for African safaris.
We only met one other set of hikers on the way down, a man and his son. They asked where we had come out of and sounded impressed that we made it all the way to the top. They asked about snow and then the man had to ask the question I wish he wouldn’t have. His son was about 10 or so and had a pretty load bear bell strapped to his pack. The father wanted to know if we had seen any signs of bear. I didn’t want to say that we had, but I’m an honest Joe and had to. The kid didn’t give much reaction, so I’m hoping he was OK with it. I’m sure they didn’t have any problems and I haven’t heard on the news about any lost hikers up there.
Over all, this was some of the most fun we’ve had in a long time. It was nice to be out with just the two of us. We could set our own pace without the kids and could talk about grown up things. The scenery was absolutely amazing and thought that there was no one around for miles was somewhat refreshing. I think everyone should do the “getting back to nature” thing every once in a while. Our feet and backs are still sore, BJ’s feet probably because she decided to play 7 games of softball in the last 3 days and hasn’t really rested much. I would highly recommend this trip to anyone looking to get away and have some time to yourselves. I don’t know if it will get busier later in the summer or not, but going at the beginning of July like we did seemed to work out perfectly. Next time I think we’ll bring a bit more plastic to cover the tent in case the sky decides to fall on us again.
Check out the rest of the photos from the trip at my Flickr page
Here's the elevation profile of the trip too if anyone is curious about how big the climb was.
