Backpack to Boulder Lake in the Pioneers, and Remembering the Biggest Shi*show Ever!

I pulled in the cool fall air, and kept heading up the trail to Boulder Lake. This Fall weekend I was headed up on a September weekend, but as I walked up the trail I was remembering one of the most screwed up backpacks. This weekend was with two couples from our scout troop, and the messed up trip was on a class outing when I taught a backpacking class at Boise State U. That class was 6 class sessions, followed by an overnight backpack in September.

The hike to Boulder Lake is reached via Trail Creek Summit east of the town of Ketchum. At 21 miles you turn right onto Wild Horse Creek, and continue another 7.7 miles to Wild Horse Trailhead. One immediately crosses the creek below.

This Fall trip was going fine, but I remembered being on the same trail some years ago when everything went wrong. The class members were in private cars, and we all stopped at Mountain Home for snacks and coffee. It was kind of chaotic in the parking lot, sprinkling lightly, and after a few minutes we all (we thought) headed on to Ketchum. We gathered at the Elephant’s Perch for last minute gear purchases, but one car containing 2 people and 3 packs never showed. After quite a while I sent the students on to hike in to the lake on their own, and I and the guy with no pack would join them later. We finally located them by Tuckie calling their home. They had been discouraged by rain showers in Mountain Home, and they just turned around and went home to Boise.

That left one fellow with no camping gear. We finally decided to get a cheap sleeping bag and pack, and improvise the rest. He had no cooking supplies, no stove, no tent. He bought snack food for the 2 day trip, and some hours later he and I headed to the trailhead. As sunlight faded, we got a mile or so above the trailhead, about in the place shown below, which is where my student started to get cramps in his legs. They got pretty bad, and we stopped to deal with them. I gave him a bouillon cube (the cooking kind), because it has a lot of salt and would help his leg cramps. I neglected to tell him to chew it up, and he swallowed this little hard cube with pointy corners whole. It didn’t go down, but lodged halfway down. He was in severe distress, and we tried to get some water down his throat to dissolve it. I heated up some water and we finally dissolved some of the cube before he choked to death. Yikes!

At 1.5 miles you come to a bridge made of two timbers.

At 3 miles one reaches an open avalanche slope, followed by a Hobbit-like wooded area. When the student and I came through this area it was raining, dark, and we were wet.

After the avalanche slope it is 1.8 miles to the lake, with the last 0.25 mile being up a steep rocky gap, gaining 250’ in the last .25 miles. On this trip we decided to camp in the trees, as I had many years ago. When my student and I got to camp the rest of the class had food for the student, and a place in a tent for him to sleep. The rain had subsided, and people had a big fire in a firepit, and were warming their wet shoes near the fire. Just about then a shoe fell in the hot coals of the fire, and was burning and melting. A girl student reached in and grabbed it, and burned her hand with melted rubber. We put her hand in the ice cold water to treat the burn.

Things went better this trip, as we sat around a fire in a firepan (Josh’s gold panning pan) in folding chairs and had a sip of alcohol after dinner.

This trip we awoke to frost, and the sun never made it to the lake. We packed up and headed out, and I made a note to myself to bring gloves next time. Packing up a frosty tarp is a terrible abuse of cold hands! On that trip years ago the group walked out with one person in Keene sandals, having melted his shoes, one person with a burned hand, and everyone with wet gear. Surprisingly, spirits were high!