Backpacking Day 2: To Bench Valley

The second day of our trip took us up out of the North Fork valley to Guest Lake, in a hanging valley above it.


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There are two ways up to Guest Lake from the river. You can either take the established trail, or you can use the old trail, which has been abandoned for many years. The old trail goes straight up the hill, and the new one requires a three mile or so dog-leg upstream on the river. We opted to try the old route.

After hiking for a few miles, along the river valley filled with big lodgepoles, aspens, red fir, and douglas-firs, past calm pools and across narrow tributary streams, and past a water survey cabin, we finally made it to the turn-off.  It was a bit hard to find, though, and we walked past it the first time.  We then doubled back and saw the nails in a tree that indicated there used to be a sign there.

From then on, it was usually just find-the-duck, and we worked our way up the hill steadily but slowly.  In some places, the path was still obvious as a track in the dirt, but in other places there was no sign of it at all. It gets a bit confusing in switchbacks, but it probably saved us time to go this way in the long run.  We also got good views back down the valley.

The North Fork valley

After lunch, we topped out into a splendid verdant collection of forest, meadows and wildflowers, the trail becoming very clear as it wound its way through the low understory of the forest.  Then we met up with the maintained trail, and had an enjoyable walk.  The last few hundred feet up to McGuire Lakes are a very steep set of switchbacks, though, and we had to grunt our way up.  Those lakes were very pretty, but as soon as we got there big swarms of mosquitoes descended on us.  We stopped to take pictures, anyway, before moving on to Guest Lake.

Smaller McGuire Lake

Guest Lake has some meadows around the outlet that were very buggy, and our camp at the foot of Blackcap turned out to be the buggiest of the trip.  Curiously, there were two well-established campsites with fire rings here (despite the elevation: over 10,000'), but we didn't use one of the big camps.

That evening was one of the few we did not go swimming, but I did go fishing.  Guest is the sort of lake where you catch a little Brookie with every cast.  So, we had fish for dinner and then for breakfast the next morning.  The rise was pretty spectacular as there were both lots of fish and lots of insects for them to eat.

Most of these ripples are from fish, not the wind!

More pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/sets/72157634830824622/with/9380125535/