White Cloud Peaks Loop

White Cloud Peaks Loop, Idaho

Total Mileage: 35 miles (approximate, including side-trips)

Total elevation gain: 7,500 feet (approximate)

Scenery: 10
Solitude: 8
Difficulty: 7

Our itinerary: 2 nights 3 days

Day1: Fourth of July Creek trailhead --Hammock Lake
Day2: Hammock Lake -- Upper Chamberlain Lake
Day3: Hike out

Another great place in Idaho. The white cloud range is probably the 2nd most popular backpacking places in Idaho (1st is in the Sawtooth). Although it is popular in Idaho, it is much much less hikers compared to California or New England. 

Ants Basin

First, we started at Fourth of July Lake trailhead, and then hiked up to the pass. From the pass, Ants Basin was seen. From the top, white-colored mountains were visible. I got it why the area is called White Clouds Peaks. It was a perfect sunny day without clouds. Only White Clouds in the scene and that was appealing its white color by reflecting shiny sunlight. The entire Ants Basin was warmly green in the sun. No humans at all except for us. It was very peaceful. Next moving stuff we saw was pika. Always pika is cute. 

Born Lakes

At 4.5 miles, we arrived Born Lakes. This lake is really beautiful and it is popular destination for an easy overnight backpacking. The lake looked sky blue at the first sight. Later, from other angle, it is mesmerizing emerald green. Born Lakes are really beautiful and enjoyable from all directions. 

 

 

Four Lakes Basin

To make a loop for this backpacking, off-trail starts from Born lake. First you climb scree up to 10,220 foot pass. This is an amazing view. You see Ants Basin and White Clouds Peak in the distance, then you see beautiful Four Lakes Basin below. There are quite pretty four lakes below and we descended into that. Whoa, this was quite steep! We checked out all four lakes. They are really hidden. I felt so lucky having an opportunity to look them. SO PRETTY!! For some reason, nice trail was there from the fourth lake to the next quite lake even though that was officially no trail area. It used to be a trail? Or it was a mountain goat path? However, once we reached the Quiet lake, complete off-trail adventure came back. 

Quiet Lake

Quiet lake (literally this name) is peaceful as you can imagine. Quiet lake was really deep dark blue, which was exceptional. Then we hike up meadow and scree more to the Scree Lake, then Shallow Lake, then came back to the official trail. Here we saw mountain goat in the distance. They were eating grass in the meadow near the lake. Their fur is fluffy! I could feel fluffy even though they were far. I had seen mountain goat but they were always on the cliff. In White Clouds, they were in the meadow. Mr.N said that they were lazy. I said, "It's OK, because they are cute"

campsite

We camped at Hourglass lake for the first night. The lake was completely ours. The campsite was awesome with lake and mountain view. 

Next day we went through a couple more lakes of Boulder chain lakes, then wen t down about 2000 feet. Then we again started ascending. A little before we reached the Castle Divide, we decided to do some off-trail portion to go to Castle Lake. The guide book "Backpacking Idaho" indicated that Castle Lake is beautiful, and the author had some tips where to leave the official trail to go there. Those descriptions were helpful usually, but this time it confused us more. First, the book indicated that leaving the trail after a junction with the trail along the Wickiup Creek, but that trail is obviously abandoned and there was not a single hint of used-to-be a trail. Second, the book said that there would be very tall carin when sketchy path starts, but clearly not. We eventually found the sketchy path to the lake: I believe that is a mountain goat path, because it is so narrow on the edge of steep talus. Also , the book said mountain goat is frequently spotted at Castle Lake. The path was really scary, but the worst part was short. The Castle lake is really beautiful and it was worth wondering off-trail for a while. Nobody was at the lake of course, and Mr.N jumped into the lake. Then we came back to an official trail and hiked up to the pass, then we went to the side trail to go to upper Chamberlain lake. We camped there. There was a big horse campsite with a fire ring. Previously at Sawtooth, fire needs to be on the special fire mat, but we didn't bring it. Here in White Clouds, it is allowed to have a fire in the existing fire ring. I was so happy to have fire finally! While Mr.N was in the lake, I started fire :) 

Mountain Goat

Next morning when we hiked out from upper Chamberlain lake, Mr.N saw something and said, "Oh something there. Is that a dog?"  Since dogs are allowed in National Forest there, he thought so. The white small thing moving was actually mountain goat kid! After the small one, three adult mountain goat came to the meadow. It was precious to have a time to observe them. 

Until hiking to Washington Lake, there was no humans, but we saw at least 10+ day hikers at Washington Lake which is a couple of miles from the trailhead. 

White Cloud has outstanding scenery, wonderful wildlife. I really had a great time.

Central Lemhi Range Loop, Idaho

 Central Lemhi Range Loop, Idaho

Total Mileage: 50 miles (approximate, including side-trips)

Total elevation gain: 11,500 feet (approximate)

Scenery: 6
Solitude: 8
Difficulty: 7

Our itinerary: 4 nights 5 days

Day1: South Fork Big Creek trailhead --Big Eightmile Creek area
Day2: Big Eighmile Creek area --Squirrel Creek
Day3: Squirrel Creek -- Iron Creek
Day4: Iron Creek Point (side trip) -- South Fork Big Creek
Day5: Hike out

Central Lemhi Range Loop! This loop highlights solitude and a lot of wildlife. How many people know Lemhi range? Not many. This makes this area really remote. Lemhi range is hidden behind already remote Lost River range. Also, the road to the trailhead is rough, although a sedan can make it. Indeed during our 5-day backpacking, we only saw 3 backpackers (2 in a group, and a solo backpacker). We talked with a solo backpacker who is from Boise, Idaho. When he found out that we came from Mass, he was surprised. He said that we reminded him of geese: sometimes he saw a goose why landed on a weird place despite all other places. He looked us like that way. He might have been surprised if I had said I am from Japan. I might be the first Japanese person who hiked in the Lemhi range actually! It is remote in terms of hikers, but half of this loop the trail is open to motorcycles. This was disappointing, but not too bad. We only saw 3 motorcycles over 5 days. 

Young bull

First we started hiking up along North Fork Big Creek. It was a hot day over 90F. When we arrived at the trailhead a day before, the thermometer in the car hit 100F (OMG). Our rental car was black, so inside was even hotter! Lemhi range seems geologically very hot. Later I looked again the Idaho backpacking book and this loop is stated best in June. Anyhow I don't regret. As I mentioned above about abundant wildlife, only 1 hour later we started hiking, we saw a moose bull. His antlers were still covered with velvet. Compared to the bull we saw in September in Alaska, he was smaller, but *still* big animal. He seemed surprised by presence of hikers and went deep in the forest. Then 10 minutes later we saw another young bull! The area must have very good food for moose. 

Devil's Basin

 After 10 mile of hiking, we arrived at Devil's Basin where we planned to camp. The meadow was really pretty. Green grass and surrounding high granite mountains are nice, however, there was a big problem: mosquitoes. SOOOO many mosquitoes, probably because there is a river in the middle of the meadow. I am extremely popular among mosquitoes. Thus I had to move on to the next camping area. (FYI: in Florida, I got 198 mosquito bites while Mr.N got 2 bites. This is the real numbers. I literally counted the bites.)

Looking down Devil's Basin

We left the basin and ascended the trail. In the left picture, you can see Devil's basin's green meadow below. There is no sign at the pass but we knew that is the junction by Idaho backpacking book. We took a little side trip to enjoy the ridge line to see remote Lehmi range. Despite such a great remoteness, the trail seemed rerouted and sometimes old trails were seen from new trail. We wondered why such remote area needs new trail.

1st night campsite

Then we descended to another beautiful basin and camped. In the evening one motorcycle passed the trail. Other than that, it was really quiet and solitude night.

For this trip we had one pack freeze-dried food (2 servings/pack) and Idahoan (dried mashed potatoes) or instant rice for 2 people dinner. Most people eat freeze-dried food 2 servings for 1 person. Usually 1 serving is not enough after all-day backpacking for one person. So we added Idahoan or rice to it. We were in Idaho, so Idahoan is the right thing to eat isn't it?

Yellow Lake from the 10,200 pass

Next morning, we climbed up to the 10,200-foot Yellow pass. From the pass, pretty Yellow lake was seen. Also the undulating mountains in Lehmi. It is very peaceful. Nobody else. At the top, I ate Japanese Melon Pan. I bought it at Japanese store in Salt Lake city. Then we descended to Yellow Lake and enjoyed it by the lake. After the Yellow lake, there were two choices. We could either stay on the official trail, or go down to the Middle Fork Lake by off-trail (mostly via mountain goat sketchy path). We looked down the lake from top. The lake was pretty, but after the lake we would need to stay in the forest. So we decided to stay on the official trail which is all the way above tree line on the ridge.

Meadow in the evening

For the 2nd night campsite, we chose the meadow near Squirrel Creek. Evening light hit the meadow, and it became orange. That was really beautiful. A bonus about this campsite is a chair! In this area horse camping are allowed. We found an established big campsite that was obviously used by a big party came with mules and horses. The reason we thought so was that a camping chair was left, and a styrofoam target was left. It was lucky to be able to sit on a chair while backpacking super remote.  

Elk

Next day we did a side trip to Iron Creek Point, which is 10,736 foot high. This was incredible, because we saw elk. Those elk is definitely one of the highlights of the entire Idaho trip. Usually we saw wildlife early in the morning or evening. We saw the elk around 8 a.m. on the talus. The trail is rarely used and nobody else on that day, too. Elk walking sounds on the talus made us notice the existence of them. Wow! A bull and several females and their kids. Females called with high-pitch voice to warn that there are humans.

Elk

 

It was funny that males ran away first when they noticed us, then females and kids were monitoring us as you see in the left picture. Adult mothers put small ones in the middle to protect them. 3 adults and 3 kids. Those small ones have white dots. 

 

 

Iron Creek Point

The view from Iron Creek Point was wonderful. This is the southwest side of Lehmi range. At the summit, there was collapsed lookout. We saw very old coffee metal can and fish can under. The package looked like 1950 or earlier even. The person in charge of lookout lived and watched wildfire I guess. 

Old lookout

Lehmi range is quite a unique place. It is isolated and solitude is promised. Many wildlife sighting is expected as well. This was another memorable backpacking.