Superb Sawtooths

Timing is everything.

According to the guy slinging coffee at the espresso trailer in Stanley, they've been socked in up there for weeks, unable to see the range from the road for all the smoke. Until Friday, that is, when the wind blew it all out and cleared the view and the air.

So, we nailed it perfectly.

We had a fantastic trip, which started off on the boat across Redfish Lake. The shuttle only took about 5 minutes, but saved us a good 5 miles of hiking. So, we got to start on the far end of Redfish Lake, which meant we hit camp off Redfish Lake Creek in mid-afternoon. The site we found first was very nice, close to the water and with some flat and open space to hang in. But further investigation found an even better one, just a bit farther from the water but up on a rock plateau shielded from behind and wide open in front onto this view:

Amazing.

We dayhiked out on Saturday to Saddleback Lakes, a pristine pair of joined lakes right at the base of Elephant's Perch. To get there, we did quite a bit of bushwhacking, intending to hit what was described as a faint trail at some point before reaching the lake. 2 hours and quite a few cuts and scrapes later, we hit the trail, which wasn't faint at all.

I'm glad we went the way we did--Cathy was a total trooper and impressed the hell out of me with what she was willing to go over and through. At one point, when I was worried that this was getting to be a bit much, what with the very steep terrain and dwindling supply of water, she piped up and said "This is kinda fun." She rocks.

We made it to the lake and were able to hang out and have a nice long lunch, letting the dogs swim and dive to their hearts' content. Then we followed the trail down, which only took us about an hour and ended up about 50 meters from the turnoff to our site.





Sunday morning we lazed around camp and then packed up and headed back to catch the boat.




Great trip, can't wait to explore more of the Sawtooth range on foot.

More pics here.