Twin Lakes w/ the Vandettas.

Twin Lakes on the PCT. 

  Its been a long time since I have been to Twin Lakes. The memories I have of this hike were bitter and sweet all at the same time. Go back over 20years ago and I thought I was going to die on the hike with my 100lb pack (i'm sure it wasnt that much, but it felt like it). We were inexperienced and were packing canned food up...yes, the pack was heavy. I was extremely over weight, so hiking up was miserable. But I remember once I got up there, it was so beautiful. I got to fish, and really enjoyed a peaceful weekend.

  This trip was much different. Not so overweight, in fairly good shape, having some backpacking experience and light weight gear, made this hike blissful and amazing. A quick hour from the parking lot and we were setting up camp. Not bad with kids and dogs.

  We left town at around 530pm, drove up to the Trailhead and hit the trail around 630pm. By 7:30pm we were setting up camp in this beautiful secluded spot on the East side of the lake. A great pick by Aeryn, and a wonderful fit for crew of hammocks and tents.We were still setting up in the dark, but it was all good. We really wanted this extra night getting to camp, plus we knew this was a holiday weekend and wanted to make sure we got a spot. Turns out there werent alot of people up there, a fair amount for this lake, probably more than it usually see's in one weekend, but still we had a fair pick of sites. Suprisingly there was quite a party crowd up there the same night, we enjoyed lots of "Wahoo's" through out the night, and into the early morning. So much for the quiet solitude of nature. But, its part of the experience of sharing with others, right?

  The next morning was quiet, I think the party crowd were sleeping in. Lol. We got a fair start to our day, continuing to set up camp, getting water, making breakfast, enjoying each others company. about 11am the mist came in, which quickly turned to sprinkles, and than full blown rain by 1pm. We decided to head down to Cj's (local gas station), so Dylan, me and the girls took a hike back to the car, drove down to see if we can find some tarps. (we did bring a couple, but they werent going to keep everyone dry), luckily the wonderful people at Cj's had a couple used ones in the back that they were willing to sell (as they were all sold out), so back to camp we went.

  I love the lessons learning opportunities on adventures like this. My dear daughter wore cotton socks, got soaked and was miserable on the hike back. I gave her my wool socks and an umbrella to carry on the way back. Suddenly, she was much happier. I have purchased many sock liners and wool socks for my kids, and though asked many times, I dont think they understood what they were for. My daughter totally got why we where wool socks and no cotton on trips like this. The great news? She was totally sold on bringing the proper gear, and she survived with out any major problems. :o) Happy mom here.
 
  My hubby and I planned this weekend on a quick last minute trip with the intent on selling backpacking to him and my daughter has always wanted to go, and my son, well.... we are weening him off the electronics. Lol. Though the rain was a hard sell, my daughter was completely sold, and her and Aeryn did sooo well, I was gently surprised. I thought for sure it would be hard for them. But they did amazing! The only complaints were from improper gear which was quickly addressed (i brought extra socks. always a must for hikers/backpackers). The general consensus from my family is my daughter cant wait to go back, my hubby says he will do it again if its not raining, my son...not to pleased we took him away from his electronics. Well, cant win them all, but overall I think we did a great job.

  Another great opportunity we learned from this trip was backpacking with dogs. Though I know this is a controversial subject, we own dogs, we foster dogs, and dogs are a big part of our life. So if we want to backpack, so learning so politely with dogs is our goal. I was generally worried about how the dogs would do, and how we would carry their gear. It turns out that Next Adventure had a doggy backpack in the bargain basement when I stopped by right before our trip. Yeah!! The backpacking gods were shining down on me.

  I packed the bags evenly with only doggy gear, and we carried their mattress. It worked out really well. I was worried about our Cherry, as she is a bit of a pampered princess, and she did amazing. She didnt like the rain any more than we did, but she handled it well. She loved all the wonders of our camping trip, and seemed guinely thrilled being out in the woods. Yeah! A sold backpacker.
  Remington our little basket case, did pretty well. Since he is our hyper one, he got to carry the pack. Lol. We really hoped it would wear him out so he could be slighly civilized in camp. The best that he can be. Of course he is our psycho pooch, and he barked at everyone that came anywhere near our camp. :( sigh....He had to stay on lead the whole time because he wouldnt stay in camp. Sigh....Where Ms Cherry, stayed in camp no problems and had the luxury of being off lead some of the time.

 The first night we had Cherry sleep with the girls, and she did great. The second night we had her sleep with Sage, as he wanted to at first, and the girls wanted a night off. Well, this turned out to be quite a struggle for Ms Cherry and Sage. First Cherry didnt like the tighter quarters of Sage's tent. Second, she was stinky, in Sage's terms. So at one point, her constant movement knocked down the tent in the middle of the night. So Sage let her outside, and set the tent back up. She didnt want to go back in after that. So Sage left her outside. Needless to say she didnt like that too much, so she decided to chew up the cord at the front of the tent that held the front of the tent up. So Sage had a collapsed tent again. The funniest site ever was waking up to see her sitting on her haunches with her back to Sage, her nose in the air like "hah! Take that!" and Sage's tent in shambles around him. I laughed so hard. What was even funnier, as that she would have nothing to do with him the rest of the morning. Lol. Ridgebacks are soooo funny.

**from here on out is gear and food talk. **

Gear report. Well, obviously the rain flys are a must this time of year. I had lots of talks with other backpackers on Friday before I left, but sadly couldnt find any of the gear we needed, so we took our chances. Rain flys are currently being shopped for as we speak.

My ENO hammock did wonderfully again...so in love with this hammock. The Wilderness Technology hammock was still not a sell for my son, my hubby struggled with his a bit, and Ethan tried it out this weekend, as well, and loved it...Some of the struggles they are having is the air mattress, it keeps sliding off to the side. My guess is that its the type of air mattress, they are rectangular where mine is more of a ergonomical shape. Or is it that they are not filling up there air mattress enough, still working on addressing this. Though Jason did enjoy tying his boots together and hanging them over one end of his hammock to keep the fly closed. :o)

  Our little stoves continue to amaze me. One they are so light weight, two, they are continually durable. They survived a very wet weekend with no problems, they survived getting stepped on, and bent right back into shape. Love these little stoves.

Food

  Well leaned on some of the same stuff from last weekend, because it was a quick plan trip. But also tried new stuff we had already that we havent tried yet. For example, we tried Scrambled Eggs and Hashbrowns, but forgot seasoning, so they were really blan...I didnt really care for eggs, they came out a bit wierd. But in all fairness, they dont cook well in a pot, when it specifically calls for a pan to fry them in. Didnt have that or the butter. so both the hashbrowns and eggs were a little weird. I didnt like cleaning up from the Eggs either. Not sure if I will do those again.

I also tried the red beans and rice recipe that I use at home, it didnt quite turn out as well. I thought it was a little over seasoned, which makes me wonder when I split the bag into two different bags, if most of the seasonings didnt go into one. Hmmm. the hard part about using already mixed ingredients. I also noticed that this particular recipe used a lot of fuel to cook. I dont know that this is really ideal for light weight backpacking. Its on the maybe list, as a retry.

  I'm very proud of Sage going out there on a limb with food!! (personally i think he was starving and going through a growth spurt. Lol.) I packed a new to me, hot cereal. Its a brown rice cereal that i added dried apples, cinnamon and brown sugar to. It came out a bit blah. But Sage added a package of Apple Cider mix to it, and it came out really good!! Who would've thought? Sage. Lol.

  After this weekends cooking adventures I have decided to make a list of tried and true recipes, so that the boy scouts will have easy food choices to pick from on their backpacking trips. This will be great for those of the boys that are Celiac, as well, and they cant use some of the gluten loaded MRE's out there, this also works great for those that dont want to do MRE's for whatever reason they chose.