6 miles of hiking • 1500' elevation gain • 1 night
I've been itching to get out for a while so I decided to head up to the mountain for a solo backpack trip. I've only done one before with my sister's dog and this would be my first completely by myself. I stopped at the Zig Zag Ranger Station and decided on Twin Lakes since it's a winter trail with appropriate markers (blue diamonds) so my chances of getting lost were slim. I also decided to go to the Upper Twin Lake because I had to work the next night and needed to make sure I got home in time to get a nap in before my night shift.
I hit the trail around 11:30a and made good time, getting to my chosen campsite on the northern end of the lake around 1:00p. I attracted the attention of three cute white/brown birds who I still need to ID, but they were quite friendly and I thought for sure they'd land on my hand if I had fed them something. But I didn't! I had recently bought two alcohol stoves and thought this trip would be a good test of their capabilities. I had already tested them at home to somewhat mediocre results and was willing to take the risk for a quick overnight. I set up my Hennessy Hammock first, then started to work on collecting snow to melt for water for my dinner. Let's just say I abandoned the alcohol stove and used my emergency stash of Esbit tabs to get enough water for dinner (mac and cheese with hamburger ala Kraft singles!) and some coffee/hot cocoa mix. Next time I'm bringing my Simmerlite or Pocket Rocket. Thankfully, I had plenty of time to wait around for the water to boil and melt. I had an early dinner and retired to the hammock to do some reading. I fell asleep and then had one of many "creepy critter" moments of the night. Some of this, I am sure is due to my own vivid imagination. But I swear that something actually walked under my hammock and made contact with me! It growled and I growled back at it. And then it left. It freaked me out. I made sure to move around a lot when I would hear things, and much to my chagrin, when I awoke in the morning, there was a good two inches of powder covering any tracks there may have been. :( I'm still curious what it was, but I guess I will never know.
It started snowing around 7a and I got up and at it around 8:30a, decided to skip a warm breakfast after the stove fiasco the night before, grabbed a ProBar out of my pack and quickly set about to tearing camp down. I was on the trail by 9:40a, back to the trailhead at Frog Lake Sno-Park by 11:10a.
All in all, a truly successful experience and I can't wait to get back out there again!
