Scottish Lakes

Just before Christmas, Brandon & I headed to Scottish Lakes High Camp (near Leavenworth) for some R & R and potential skiing. For those of you who don't know of this place, you can ski or snowmobile in (8 miles on an unplowed road) to stay in these very basic, rugged cabins. It's great fun!...check it out: http://www.scottishlakes.com/Home.shtml

[Larkspur cabin]

[The cabin got too toasty for our squirrel roomie!]

After a large, tasty breakfast (they haul all of your food in on snowmobile so we go all out!), we headed out for a ski tour towards High Point. We thought the most logical route would be to go up McCue Ridge, but this was a long slog.

[B on top of McCue Ridge]

[It was beautiful up there...]

[Very cool light/reflection phenomenon...
not a flaw in the pic, we could actually see this pool of light shimmering over the valley.]

Just after 2 hours of skinning, we were beyond High Point but still quite far from High Meadows. We contemplated following our skin track back to the camp, but felt like we deserved a ski after all that touring, so we began to look for a slope to go down. Above Lake Julius, we thought we could ski down this treed slope (it wouldn't be great but we'd get a couple turns) and then connect with another trail that would take us back to camp.

[Our 'treed' ski slope, Glacier Peak in the distance]

[Lake Julius below (note the massive forest btwn here & there)]

However, the slope was more than just a little tree'd...after 2-3 turns, we were mostly side-stepping the hill, going from one tree well to another. Pretty soon, we were skiing on large ice-covered rocks that weren't well-covered. So we decided to take our skis off and boot-pack down. At some points, we were stepping off of small, ice-covered cliffs in our clunky ski boots, trying to keep hold of our skis and poles. I got very cranky.

[Not so cranky...]

[Very cranky...

clambering down an icy rock face, my skis propped delicately on a tree limb above]

After a full hour of trudging downhill (not exactly what we had in mind), we got to the shores of frozen Lake Julius and skinned along its flat surface. The sun was going down and I was getting nervous about not knowing exactly where we were. Brandon was confident in his navigation skills but I really wanted to be on a known trail before dark. Thankfully, we came to one and made our way back to our cabin -home sweet home- before the sun set completely.

[On our way out from Lake Julius...less cranky]

Our bodies tired from the long day (about 6 hours of skinning/trudging), we headed to the hot tub to relax our muscles. A great dinner, a nice dessert, and to bed early in our cozy chalet...all is well that ends well, right?!

[Cozy hot tub!]

[Gear drying out by the fire]