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  1. #1
    Senior Member Hang Williams's Avatar
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    White Cloud Wilderness: 5 days/4 nights and bonus overnight in the Sawtooths

    The wife and I took a week long trip out west. After checking reports for fire smoke and weather, we settled on heading into the white cloud wilderness starting at the Big Boulder Creek trailhead.



    Our packs were a bit heavier than we wanted and the trail went straight up 7 miles to our first campsite at Walker lake. To say we were beat when we arrived to camp would be an understatement.


    We had a few visitors the first night including this strapping lad.


    Day 2 was spent catching over 100 trout including cutthroat, rainbow, and every degree variation of cutbow you could imagine. It ended up being in the 90s that day and I spent a good deal of time cooling off in the water. I'll spare the pictures for decency sake.

    Day 3 we woke up early to head up to the big boulder lakes which would be a good deal of unmaintained trail hiking that turned into a lot of off trail hiking. The plan was to head from Walker lake up to hook, then cove and sapphire lakes. Well, after about an hour and a half long detour where we ended up following cairns through a meadow up a mountain to only get cliffed out a few hundred yards from the first lake (from which point we spotted a Goat path on the opposite side of the meadow below that couldn't possibly be the trail....that we would learn later in the day actually was the trail), we decided to head back to the more clear path up to sheep lake to loop counterclockwise. Rather than reinventing the wheel, here's a snapshot from one of the blogs of this trip that I'd read ahead of time showing the general route we took.
    http://idahoalpinezone.com/modules/g...c2004route.jpg

    At one of the upper lakes I caught my biggest trout to date. Pictures don't do it justice, but I measured it against the rod to be 17" and fat as can be.


    We then headed up over a mountain pass. This was my first time climbing on scree and I thought it was fun. My wife, not so much.


    The view from the top of the pass was amazing with cirque, sapphire, and cove lakes visible below. We didn't stay long as rain and 30 mph winds rolled in and the way down to cirque lake looked long and steep.


    We ended up losing the path to cirque lake at some point in the descent, but the cross country route through a rolling meadow down to sapphire lake was beautiful. We'd had a number of unplanned detours and my wife was still shaky from the scree field, so I didn't bother taking my pack off as we hiked and fished around the lake. At least the rain had slowed to a drizzle.




    We eventually made our way down to the goat path we had seen earlier and, after a mildly treacherous descent, were down in the meadow where we again promptly lost site of the footpath. No worries, we pointed in the right direction and eventually intersected the trail. If you're ever doing this hike yourself, your navigation point across the meadow should be to the eastern portion of hook lake from about 9500' on the obvious footpath up to sheep lake. That will take you to the bottom of the cliff below hook lake and you'll see the path up from there. Day 3 ended with a bald eagle swooping down to catch trout out of Walker lake next to our campsite. This was one of the best days I've ever had in the woods. The night was also the coldest night of our trip, dropping down to the low 40s, high 30s before a warm front moved back in in the early hours and raised temperatures back up to the mid 50s. I preferred it when it was colder. We had brought 20 degree gear along which was way overkill.


    Day 4 we packed up camp and headed over to Island lake. While we had some mildly ambitious plans laid out for this day, thunderstorms rolled in quickly and pinned us down under our tarps all day in a spot we had less than 5 minutes to pick and deploy tarps. Once the rain cleared that evening, I did manage to catch quite a few fish.






    The downside of being rained out was that the site we picked, gorgeous as it may be, had trees that were just a bit too far apart for a perfect lay. This resulted in some pretty extreme hang angles and me stacking rocks to get the suspension high enough up the tree for my wife's hammock. We never did figure out how to get her hammock less than guitar string tight. We spent 4 hours working on it in 10 minute spurts between rain showers. Honestly, that part sucked and I wish we'd just moved rather than fraying nerves. The other downside was that a wind blew in overnight from a different direction than when we set up and I ended up with a wind tunnel effect on my hammock. Taking the tarp out of porch mode made it better, but ended up not being able to go back to sleep. At least my tarp shielded my wife's setup. All in all, pretty disappointing day and night. I'll need to read some more to avoid such problems in the future and still need to develop the eye for hammock sites vs tent sites. I was MUCH more picky about our site on our bonus trip.




    Day 5 we woke up early in better spirits. I saw a marten in camp, but didn't get a picture. We hiked over to goat lake. Boy is that place steep walled all the way around.


    After catching a few fish, we got back on the trail out. All in all about 8-9 miles with the goat lake detour. I saw a section of the creek worth fishing on the trail out and I'm glad I did. My first Bull trout!!



    This was the first backpacking trip longer than 2 nights for either of us and, including the off trail sections, definitely the most intense hike we've done. In hindsight, I wish we'd spent more time up at the Big Boulder lakes and only made a day trip out of Island and Goat lakes. Also, if we'd just brought a frying pan and a way to contact the parents so they didn't send a search party, we could've extended for another 2 days at least. We brought way too much food.

    After resting at a hotel for the night, we decided to tack on an overnighter in the Sawtooths. We chose to go to alpine lake from the iron creek trailhead and swing by sawtooth lake on the way out the next day. The views were amazing on this hike and we put away the trail miles at a blistering pace compared to our first hike. The campsite was a bit noisy at alpine lake and I wasted hours casting at a 24" golden trout that rejected every fly I offered. This was also the hottest night and, at 0230, I gave in and used a piece of string to vent the wooki. I wish I'd done that way earlier in the week as I lost a lot of sleep sitting in the hammock being too warm. The views from our campsite were awesome, though, and the hike was excellent. We even got treated to a bit of a peep show as a young lady came by to change and model various swimsuits while we were waiting out another rain shower at little sawtooth lake. Everyone uses the wilderness for different reasons I suppose. On the way back to Boise, I stopped at the S Fork Payette River to catch a few dozen more trout to bring the total to well over 200 on the week.












    Last edited by Hang Williams; 08-02-2021 at 21:45.

  2. #2
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    Great report, thank you!
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  3. #3
    Senior Member cmoulder's Avatar
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    Great trip report and photos... you guys are killin' my bucket list!

    Great to hear that your wife was still up for doing one more side trip. Must've been really spectacular!!
    Five Basic Principles of Going Lighter (not me... the great Cam Honan of OZ)
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  4. #4
    ObdewlaX's Avatar
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    Great pics & trip report! Beautiful area too. Quite a ways to go from GA! I really like wilderness areas the best becasue they're such wild places & are pretty much left alone in their natural state. Gonna have to add Whitecloud to the list!

    I assume when you were fishing, it was catch & release? Did you happen to make a trout dinner or two? Your Day 3 description of following the trail via cairns, reminded me of my trip last September in Pecos Wilderness. Once we were above the treeline, that's what my son & I had to do for 5-7 miles. Some cairns were easy to spot & navigate to, some were not!

    Thanks for posting.

  5. #5
    all secure in sector 7 Shug's Avatar
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  6. #6
    Senior Member Hang Williams's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ObdewlaX View Post
    Great pics & trip report! Beautiful area too. Quite a ways to go from GA! I really like wilderness areas the best becasue they're such wild places & are pretty much left alone in their natural state. Gonna have to add Whitecloud to the list!

    I assume when you were fishing, it was catch & release? Did you happen to make a trout dinner or two? Your Day 3 description of following the trail via cairns, reminded me of my trip last September in Pecos Wilderness. Once we were above the treeline, that's what my son & I had to do for 5-7 miles. Some cairns were easy to spot & navigate to, some were not!

    Thanks for posting.
    We had intended to cook a trout or two over the campfire, but there was a fire ban in place due to the drought and we hadn't brought along a frying pan so that'll have to wait for our next trip. Even if there wasn't a fire ban in place, the whole forest felt like a tinderbox waiting for a light. The rain we did experience was needed even if it made the scree a bit slippery and pinned us down under tarps a couple times. BTW, huge unintended benefit of hammock camping for me is the ability to just throw up a tarp for an hour or two to wait out the heavy rain rather than donning a full rain suit and pushing thru.

    I still have no clue how many miles we did on day 3. Somewhere between 5 and 10 is my guess. None of it was on maintained trail. Definitely builds my confidence for future navigation as I always knew where we were, though I had no real idea of where the path was supposed to be.
    Last edited by Hang Williams; 08-03-2021 at 09:54.

  7. #7
    Senior Member Rhody Seth's Avatar
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    Great pictures. Spectacular country. Looks like a fantastic trip with the missus!

  8. #8
    ObdewlaX's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hang Williams View Post
    Even if there wasn't a fire ban in place, the whole forest felt like a tinderbox waiting for a light.
    Same in the Pecos. Plus, there are thousands & thousands of acres of conifers that have been devastated by some kind of beetle that burrows into the tree & kills it. From above the treeline, you can see the destruction for miles & miles & miles around. A fire there, will light that place up like a birthday candle.

  9. #9
    Senior Member
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    Inspiring! Thanks so much for the report.

  10. #10
    Senior Member Tumbleweed's Avatar
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    Thanks for posting...

    " This was also the hottest night and, at 0230, I gave in and used a piece of string to vent the wooki."

    Would you please elaborate on the Wooki string venting endeavor?

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