White Clouds: Some views are meant to be taken in with a shortness of breath

Four Lakes Basin

What can I say about the White Clouds, if you haven't been yet you need to because your missing out on one of Idaho's secret gems. I absolutely love the White Clouds and claim them as my backyard since I was practically raised there and what better way of getting back there by showing them off to a few friends.

Justin

Four Lakes

I really wanted to do the Big Boulder Chain since I have only been to a few of those lakes but I thought I would take these guys through the portion of the White Clouds that I know the best. So we started at the Fourth of July trail head and hiked up to Fourth of July Lake, headed over to Born Lakes and then over the top to Four Lakes Basin and down into Quiet Lake to camp for the night. The hike took us longer then expected and was harder than I had thought. The views were sweet though and I was stoked to be in the White Clouds again for a fun filled adventure. Above Four Lakes Basin I think the boys wanted to kill me since I told them that the first day would be an easy short hike just over two passes. When we got to Quiet Lake we set up camp as we fought of the mosquitoes and got a few hours of fishing in before we called it a night. I was surprised that we didn't catch much at Quiet since it produces some bigger fish than other lakes in the White Clouds.

Quiet Lake

Castle Peak

Scree Lake

Scree and Shallow Lake

The next day we were going to focus on fishing as much as possible especially with all the lakes that we were going to hit. I told Justin that if he came with me into the White Clouds I would get him on as many fish as he wanted. Even to the extent of being tired of catching fish. The first lake that we came across was Scree Lake. When we got there the fish were rising like it was raining. The first fish that we saw were maybe a foot of the bank feeding. So I turned to Justin to see if he wanted to have a contest of how many fish we could catch while we were in the White Clouds and after we set some grounds rules the fishing was on. Justin had the first fish on but it got off and his line got caught in the trees so that gave me the opportunity to catch the first fish at Scree. I caught at least ten fish at every lake that I fished because you just get tired after ten. We eventually left Scree and Shallow to head to Lonesome Lake via Windy Devil.

Little Boulder Chain

After having lunch at Windy Devil we dropped down to Scoop Lake to drop our packs and grab what we need to head to Lonesome. It didn't take us to long to get to Lonesome with Justin leading, he was a beast blazing up the hill, I even had a tough time keeping up with him. But after awhile we made it to the second highest lake in Idaho standing at 10435 ft, 3 ft shorter than Goat Lake in the Pioneer Mountains.

These Boys

Views from Lonesome

It didn't take long to start seeing fish. I missed a few in the first couple minutes but that wasn't going to stop me. After I hooked into the first one, the excitement set in and the fishing was one. Each one that I hooked into it felt like I hooked a rock but I just took notes from Jeremy Wade and felt confident in my equipment and set the hook hard. It was an awesome feeling to land these hogs. I just wish Justin would have hooked into one and watch him fight until his Tenkara Rod broke. I would have camped out all week to get tickets to that show.

After we came off Lonesome, Justin and Colt had there time at Hummock Lake. After I caught my limit of ten fish while Justin was setting up his rod I told him to come over to my spot and fish with a dry. I just sat there and watched him and Colt pull in a fish on every cast until I had enough and we moved on to the next lake. That day we hit 9 lakes and fished all of them. The next day we had planned on dropping down into the valley and hike to Castle lake after we fished Hatchet and Willow Lake in the morning. We caught a few more fish here and there as we went but when we got to Chamberlain Basin where we had planned on camping for the night Colt wanted to hike out to make it to church the next day. So we made a group decision to hike out based on Colt buying us dinner when we got to Sun Valley. I'm glad it was Colts decision to hike out because it was brutal on all of us. I thought we would make it to the car in two hours but it really took us three hours of power hiking. When we got to Sun Valley it was way to late and everyone was tired. We eventually made it home at 11:30 pm, with one heck of an adventure. Oh yeah Justin caught 63 fish and I caught 98 fish.

"The Lord has blessed us all today... It's just that he has been particularly good to me".

--Norman Maclean

Castle Peak

Justin, Colt and Me