Hozomeen Lake backpacking and a small lake-related incident

Last weekend Jay and I decided to head to Hozomeen Lake, a short backpacking trip to one of five lakes in WA that has nesting loons. I have no clue why loons don't like nesting in WA - does anyone know? I grew up spending many summer vacations in the amazing Adirondacks of New York, where it seemed like every large lake had one or more pairs of nesting loons. Thus, camping by a lake and listening to the cry of loons throughout the entire night was a dream come true for this former New York wilderness gal.

Hozomeen Lake barely counts as a backpacking trip - it is a super easy and short 3.6 mile hike in to the lake. But we weren't after miles on this trip - we were after loons. And we had the entire lake to ourselves for two nights. It was lovely, serene, and very wild. Why so wild? To reach this part of North Cascades National Park you have to actually drive north into Canada and then back south into the USA and the park. So it requires a passport (which only 30% of Americans have - jeez - that statistic annoys me every time) and a willingness to drive several hours. The result? Solitude at an amazing lake with massive mountains as the background.

We woke up Saturday morning to the cry of loons, had a very fancy oatmeal breakfast (the view made it fancy) and headed off on a trail further into the park. Lucky for us, the huckleberries were ripe!! Yummy! Jay ate a ton, I ate a ton, and a bear that took a crap on the trail had clearly eaten a ton.

In addition to the blue bear shit, we felt a bit like poop detectives on the trail when it came to someone else's poo on the trail (yup, you are dealing with two biologists here). We passed seven spots along the trail where an animal had left a little gift and then used hind legs to try and bury the present. Most spots were just pee - but not all.... this one had hair-filled poo. Awful big for a western coyote....wolf? They are around this area. Any other ideas? Clearly this was an animal saying this trail was his/her trail. Pretty fascinating!

We ate our lunch at Willow Lake and turned around to take our time heading back - we wanted to pick enough huckleberries on the trail to have over our oatmeal in the morning!

 Who wouldn't want these for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? 

 It was hot, the lake was warm, and we stunk. Time for a dip! 

We spent all of our time at Hozomeen Lake watching the loon pair and their chick through our binoculars. They never got super close to us, which was fine. But on Sunday morning one of the parents and the chick drifted close enough in the morning mist for me to take a few photographs.

After breakfast and more time watching the gorgeous loons, we packed up and headed back to the car. We still had hours of driving and we still needed to go food shopping, grab a beer, and unpack at home.

But before we got in the car we decided to stop at a secluded spot along Ross Lake and hop in the lake to cool off and get rid of stinky backpacker smells. The lake was deep and clear and there was a perfect rock to jump off of. Jay launched himself in, proclaimed it wasn't that cold, and got out. I stood along side the lake, trying to get the nerve to jump in the water when Jay decided to grab me and pull me in with him. The small incident occurred when Jay's knee accidentally managed to take the full force of my fall into the lake on my back rib. Now I'm a bit of a gimp at home with a bum rib. Damn! I love that we had such a great weekend, I love that Jay loves to jump off rocks, and I'm sure my rib will heal as long as I don't try too hard to keep up with our visiting nephews over this upcoming week. Ahhhh.... life!

Photos are here at the bottom of the album: https://plus.google.com/photos/111221596171793333099/albums/6037573264071352481?authkey=CK3AyIyfh4Ct-wE