Monday 7th August – Lake, Lake, Lake, Lake and River

Despite the sun shining brightly through our uncovered tent, we managed to stay semi-asleep for a good while in the morning, not wanting to move. Cleo was still perfectly comfortable as well in her little corner. We let her out to go chase shit while we continued snoozing and after taking a big drink from the lake and getting her chase fix, she was scratching at the tent to get back in. She is so adaptable to any environment. When we got up, my first want was to jump in the lake and get refreshed. The water felt just as good as it had yesterday and for the second time, we had the lake to ourselves. The boys from the next site had already vacated.

Dan got straight onto cooking breakfast and even though I’d brought oats and muesli, he started cooking up our second packet of rice. He’d been so excited for it he hadn’t even thought about the oats. While he was doing that, Cleo and I sunned ourselves to keep warm after our morning dip.

The rice was a good choice, we both scoffed down the Mexican brekkie. We did a bit of a pack up, consolidating all of our stuff into the tent before we packed a few things into my day pack and went for a two mile hike out to three more lakes. It was the compromise for not going all the way out to Thompson Lake as we’d originally planned.

Walking through the forest, we were among weird and wonderful plants and bugs that were lingering around the still water. Being snobbish, we walked past the first lake, considering it unsuitable for swimming, but we got in at the second one. It was a little dirty on the bottom but made for a good cool off.

We passed a couple more little lakes, littered with lily pads before coming to the main event, Island Lake. Aptly named for the tiny island in the middle of the big expanse of water, we almost had the place to ourselves but for a trailrunner that had passed us a few minutes ago. We walked around to the rocky side of the lake, doing some bush bashing and rock clambering to get there. We could see the trailrunner a while away from us getting prepared for a swim. He was down to his underwear by the time we stripped down to the nude and jumped in. We were both happy to see he’d taken it all off and jumped in too, probably thanks to encouragement from us.

The water was (predictably) cold which was just perfect considering the heat. We swam out to the tiny island and stood on top of it. When I sat down to bask in the sun and got bitten on the arse by a huge ant, I jumped straight back into the water and that was our time at the island done. We swam back to the rocky shore to meet Cleo, who’d been standing on lookout ever since we’d left her. She seemed torn between jumping in after us and watching intently from the banks.

We picked up our shit and moved it over to a flat boulder in the sun where we sunned ourselves dry, the trailrunner nowhere to be seen since he’d swum to the other side of the lake. After sitting there a good while by the water, all three of us on the same boulder, we decided it was time to hit the trail, but not before one last jump into the water.

Fully clothed again, we left Island Lake behind and started our trek back to camp. Cleo was still in heaven chasing all sorts of things we couldn’t see through the bushes, getting herself proper dirty in the process. When we made it back to camp, nothing had moved and there still wasn’t anyone around. It was just a little too early in the day for day hikers to be getting here. We packed up, put everything back in our bags and were ready to hit the trail. Goodbye camp!

We chatted away as we walked around the lake that had been our home for the night and as we started climbing over the ridge, we greeted quite a few day hikers making their way down to Mason Lake. At the top of the ridge, we were happy that we’d be spending the rest of our walk doing downhill. Cleo lead the way through the rocky switchbacks without a shred of trail etiquette, often standing right in front of people coming the other way. Despite her social awkwardness, she managed to make a couple of new friends in other trail dogs.

The downhill trudging went quickly and before we knew it, we were at the creeks we’d come to on the way up, much to Cleo’s glee as she gulped down a belly full of cold water. At the trailhead, we were happy to see the Cabana parked where we’d left her and Dan enjoyed a tour of the carpark after taking his backpack off, enjoying the light feeling of carrying only his body weight around with him. We didn’t muck around in the carpark, just threw our bags in the car and made off down the road to pick up the Astro. I was a little worried that we’d left her isolated for a whole night, but she was just where we’d left her, totally untouched. Yay!

It was 4pm and we had been dreaming about making burgers for the last two miles of hiking. I Googled the closest supermarket and we head east towards it. It was a long half hour drive, but the Safeway in Cle Elum delivered our goods in spades. We picked up everything we needed for burgers, snacking on hot wedges from the deli as an entrée for the fantastic dinner that was to come. At the checkout, I paid and got $60 cashout to fill my wallet. When the lady counted out the notes for me, I was sure she’d given me $80. I quickly put the cash in my wallet and a check outside the shop showed me I was $20 richer than I should be. My only income for my whole trip!

Excited for burgers and too tired to drive much further, we sussed out a camp using Google Satellite on the Yakima River that ran through the small town.

Dan followed me to a turn off into a private gated community. A bit more Googling to correct our mistake and we found a sort-of road heading into a forest. Dan blasted past me to lead through the pine covered ground but soon enough I was infront when he drove into a dead end. Without my bike on the roof (it was still stashed in Dan’s car), I was romping it over the unsteady ground. Soon enough, the road disappeared, but the ground was flat enough and the forest dispersed enough that we could drive wherever we wanted. Dan took the lead again to get us to the river and found a sweet spot on the top of an embankment looking down into the Yakima River. Yes, this would do just fine!

Dan got straight onto cooking while I put some music on and blogged in my comfy chair looking out over the river. It was a wide piece of flowing water and it was raging fast, but almost silently. If it wasn’t for the mozzies, it would have been perfect. Soon enough, we both had burgers in our hands on beautiful pretzel buns with tomato, avocado, cheese, onions, mushrooms and bacon. Wholly shit it was delicious, even more so thanks to the physical activity we’d just finished.

We enjoyed our food with incense at our feet to keep the mozzies at bay, though it wasn’t too effective. We sat for ages after dinner just enjoying the view, spotting a mamma deer and her doe crossing the river. She was so big we thought she was a moose for a second.

The dishes done, it was time for a shower in the late evening warmth. We felt brand new after dunking ourselves into the flowing cold water and soaping our bodies all over. Back in our chairs, clean as whistles and wearing long sleeves and pants, we cleared an area and started a fire, still trying to win the war against the bugs. Dan did some Googling and found out that smoke actually does nothing to deter mozzies but we kept at it anyway. By about 9pm, it became useless so we called it and retreated into the Cabana for the rest of the night. We played a bit of cards then listened to a Seth Rogen podcast to send us to sleep.