Camping!
Dan and I decided to go camping and canoeing with his new canoe his dad gave him. Everything about the trip was last minute but that's what makes a good trip sometimes. Once we started putting the canoe on the truck, we realized we didn't have much rope so we did what we could and tried to drive to a grocery store to buy more---the canoe almost fell off completely! We made the last block nervously...
Then we went out to Baker lake with no money, looking for free camping but all the usual free camping spots were taken, especially what was our favorite. So we went to a campground that you have to pay for and talked with the host about canoeing across the lake to a site. He didn't know much about it but he said we could leave Dan's truck in the parking lot for the night for eight bucks. We used change and the little cash we had to make that deposit, put everything in the canoe and kind of just went for it.
The host discussed a "noisy creek" area across the water and a couple in the parking lot confirmed it. "Just canoe straight across towards the ridge in the mountains and you'll see the campsites." The water was choppy, windy, and a couple times the waves splashed up over the boat onto me. We were lucky though, we found the most amazing campsite ever...so private overlooking a cove perfect for swimming and an immaculate view of Mt. Baker. Though, we were kind of backcountry and had a cooler...which is a nono in bear world. We just put everything in the canoe that night.
Of course it rained and we woke up in the middle of the night and we had to wake up to put on the rain fly. The next morning, the wind was horrifying, there was no sun, it was rainy and cold. What a mistake. We were stranded most of the day, thinking of all the swimming we weren't going to do. For a while, the water was so choppy, it looked like the beach. We had to take the canoe entirely out of the water because it was getting so beaten up.
So we picked huckleberries for hours, played guitar, read, kept a fire going all day---which involved cutting down dead trees with a handsaw and hacking them up with a hatchet!, ate all of our food, and actually canoed for fun a little: we went to a shallow area that had giant stumps in the water, it was like we were flying over a logged forest...and we actually saw where fire pits were made before, they lay eight feet below the water perfectly still...the water was high. Around 8:30 we finally loaded up and headed back across the water. It was calm. Right when we got to the truck, the sky finally let out the rain and there was thunder/lightening.
Then we went out to Baker lake with no money, looking for free camping but all the usual free camping spots were taken, especially what was our favorite. So we went to a campground that you have to pay for and talked with the host about canoeing across the lake to a site. He didn't know much about it but he said we could leave Dan's truck in the parking lot for the night for eight bucks. We used change and the little cash we had to make that deposit, put everything in the canoe and kind of just went for it.
The host discussed a "noisy creek" area across the water and a couple in the parking lot confirmed it. "Just canoe straight across towards the ridge in the mountains and you'll see the campsites." The water was choppy, windy, and a couple times the waves splashed up over the boat onto me. We were lucky though, we found the most amazing campsite ever...so private overlooking a cove perfect for swimming and an immaculate view of Mt. Baker. Though, we were kind of backcountry and had a cooler...which is a nono in bear world. We just put everything in the canoe that night.
Of course it rained and we woke up in the middle of the night and we had to wake up to put on the rain fly. The next morning, the wind was horrifying, there was no sun, it was rainy and cold. What a mistake. We were stranded most of the day, thinking of all the swimming we weren't going to do. For a while, the water was so choppy, it looked like the beach. We had to take the canoe entirely out of the water because it was getting so beaten up.
So we picked huckleberries for hours, played guitar, read, kept a fire going all day---which involved cutting down dead trees with a handsaw and hacking them up with a hatchet!, ate all of our food, and actually canoed for fun a little: we went to a shallow area that had giant stumps in the water, it was like we were flying over a logged forest...and we actually saw where fire pits were made before, they lay eight feet below the water perfectly still...the water was high. Around 8:30 we finally loaded up and headed back across the water. It was calm. Right when we got to the truck, the sky finally let out the rain and there was thunder/lightening.