Last Camp This Year

I decided that I wanted to go camping one last time this year--now that I think about it, the only time this year. I thought about inviting Jared, Jackson, and Tanner and thought we could take the trailer. It turns out they had too many things going on this weekend, but I decided the trailer was a good idea anyway. So I headed up to Mirror lake way on Friday night. The only other people up there were a handful of deer hunters, and they were looking pretty bored.


I have one suggestion for the forest service. Since the Mirror Lake campground has been closed since Labor Day, I went on to campgrounds I don't know so well. At the Hayden Fork Campground, don't you think they could put this sign before the last chance to turn around, like before the road splits? I found that backing the trailer down a hill and around an S-curve in the black of night is not easy.

The nights are getting pretty cold. I left water in a bowl to flush the toilet--the trailer has never been dewinterized from last year, so I had no running water--and it turned to slush by morning. Most of the streams had ice, and many of the beaver ponds were capped with a thin ice sheet.


I don't know whether you can see it in this video, but the running water is completely sealed under ice.


I fished for a while on Mirror Lake, but you should know that the fish are all safe and growing bigger for next year. A man and his young boys started fishing close by. One of them said, "I got one." A little while later he yelled, "I got another one; that's two in 30 minutes." I had quit fishing and was finishing reading a biography of Benjamin Franklin at this point. But when he caught the second fish, I started casting lures again. A few minutes later he hollered for the whole lake to hear that he got another one. Then the brother said, "Was it just seaweed again?" He said, "Yeah, I guess, and the fish got away." So I don't think he actually caught any, and neither did the other two groups of people I saw fishing.

The beavers have been busy (get it?) getting ready for winter.










I hoped to get a picture of a beaver chewing on a tree--I waited quietly for about two hours--but I guess Saturday was grass-gathering day.







I saw this river with the low sunlight reflecting on the rocks and wanted to get a picture. From the road I just had to go down a short hill and across a small meadow...

















I didn't realize the meadow was squishy full of beaver ponds and all their connecting rivulets of water. I ended up balancing around the narrow mostly frozen edge of a beaver pond, worried that I would fall in the water on the right or down the embankment and into water on the left. After I took the picture, of course I had to go back the same way.











I like aspens at sunset. And they turn so white in autumn.



















The day was so nice that I called Chieko from the pay phone at the ranger station and told her I'd be staying until Sunday morning.

I found a forgotten log where the forest service had cut down some pine beetle-infested trees and chopped it up for a camp fire. I also borrowed a bigger log from a non-campground camp spot, since I had neglected to bring a chair.


I wanted to get a picture of me sitting by my raging campfire (I did get quite a nice fire going), but this was the last picture before my camera battery died. (And don't believe the guy at Abe's of Maine when he sells you a non-Nikon battery and tells you it's just as good. It is a worthless backup.)