Iron Bog Lake
October 7-9, 2012
"Hey, wanna burn a couple of vacation days sleeping on the ground outside?"
"Uh, no!"
"What if I told you you get to crap standing up in the woods?"
"I still wouldn't wanna go."
"You'll wake up freezing, covered in a rash."
"Alright, I'll go."
-Jim Gaffigan
This trip reminded us of Jim Gaffigan's bit on camping so I posted some of the quotes.
We back packed into Iron Bog Lake near Challis, Idaho. It was only a 1 1/2 mile hike but it gained 1,000 feet in elevation so it was UP pretty much the whole way. It took us an hour and twenty minutes to get to the lake.
"My parents never took me camping, you know why? 'Cause they loved me." -Jim Gaffigan
Here is Aftyn stopping for a rest on the way up. We had to stop for a few breaks and we walked very slowly.
"Occasionally at the campsite you'll see the Winnebego. That's kind of cheating isn't it? Oh, that's what I forgot, my house." -Jim Gaffigan
We built a fire as soon as we got to a camp site because it was pretty cold. We had to have a fire burning the whole time.
Of course playing in the fire is always fun and getting black soot on your face is all part of the experience.
Yummy! Freeze dried lasagna in meat sauce right out of the bag. Even Garrett liked it so it must have been good!
Aftyn warming her hands over the campfire.
This is a sweet look of anticipation as Aftyn waits to see what happens next in Dad's story at the campfire.
We told add-on stories around the campfire. We tried to keep them fun and not too scary.
I just love these sweet faces.
"You ever have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night? You always look at your friends, 'Nice knowin' ya, anyone wanna come and get killed with me or you wanna get killed lookin' for me?'" -Jim Gaffigan
Aftyn, snug as a bug in a rug.
Garrett getting his jammies on inside the tent.
"I probably wouldn't be so scared if I wasn't sleeping in a bag. 'Hey, let's prepackage oursevles for the serial killer, huh. I can't get away, can you? I can hop for a little but I'm dead meat.'" -Jim Gaffigan
"I got this pamphlet that says if a bear approaches you're supposed to play dead. Who came up with that? Maybe the bears. I'm not saying that strategy didn't work once, but when they find a body that's been mauled by a bear, how do they know that guy wasn't playing dead? Maybe he was the best at it. The bear was like, 'Great performance but I'm starving and he looks like burrito'." -Jim Gaffigan
We actually stayed warm all night and the kids slept good. I, on the other hand, can't remember a night in my whole life where I slept more crappy. We stayed two nights and it was a great adventure but I was excited to get home to my real bed.
On Saturday we hiked another 3/4 of a mile to another little lake called Fishpole Lake. We fished and fished for hours and hours.
Aftyn said her favorite thing to do with her dad is go fishing. Her hands were frozen but she didn't care, she just kept right on fishing.
Garrett is quite a natural. He would cast that fishing pole just like a pro.
Everybody caught several fish. I lost track of the count but none of them were very big. It didn't matter though, because everybody just had so much fun.
We tried to keep Dakota out of the water so she wouldn't scare the fish but when she saw that somebody had a fish wiggling on their line she would get so excited and could hardly contain herself. She would sit there ready to pounce until Tony told her she could get up. When the fish got thrown back in the water, Dakota would swim after it. This was actually the first time she swam by her own choice instead of being thrown in the water. She had a full day of excitement. When we got back to camp I noticed that her tail was just hanging. Usually her tail is ALWAYS up in the air and ALWAYS wagging. She was also being very careful not to sit on it. I thought her tail was broken but we couldn't think of anything that happened that would have hurt her tail. When we got home the next day we looked on line to try and figure it out. We found out that dogs can get a limp tail or sore tail from swimming in cold water or from a full day of excitement and tail wagging. Dakota did both of these things. She is used to taking several naps a day and on this day she didn't have even one nap. Needless to say, she was exhausted and slept soundly that night for 12 hours. Her tail recovered to full wagging ability after a couple of days.
We built a fort out of logs we found in the area. It probably won't survive the winter but it was fun for a couple of days.
"You know who's a 'happy camper'? The guy leaving the campsite. He's the happiest camper. He gets to take a shower." -Jim Gaffigan
Going home. Everybody had so much fun. We loved our backpacking trip and now we are ready for a shower and some rest.
All joking aside, the kids were awesome backpackers. They only whined a tiny bit but even through the whining they still had smiles on their faces. This was such a fun adventure and if I recover, I may even go again in a year or so.
