Redfish Lake
I have snowshoed into Redfish Lake in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area twice for overnight stays. The first was the end of March 2004 which happened to be fairly warm with day time temperatures sneaking up to around 40 F . This was my first overnight snowshoeing trip. I place everything I thought I would need (I do mean everything) in my trusty LowePro Specialist Pack. At that time I was using my Tubbs Pinnacle 36in snowshoes which I have purchased with the thought that I would be carrying heavy loads. I think the pack weighed in at about 50 pounds. The hike into Redfish Lake is about 3.5 miles from the road. Put my snowshoes on and started up the road. The road into Redfish is frequently traveled by snowmobilers so the road itself was fairly well packed down and in the morning cold hard as concrete. After about a mile I decided to take of the snowshoes and boot it the rest of the way. This made for easy walking and I made some pretty good time. When I got to the lake I headed left (east) towards Redfish Outlet and Sockeye Campgrounds. The road ends just at the Sockeye Campgrounds so the snowshoes went back on and I headed off the beaten path and stepped into the virgin snow that was starting to warm up in the afternoon sun. Even with the 36 in snowshoes carrying the 50lb pack sent me into the warming unpacked snow straight up to my knees. Post holing through the soft snow was a nightmare. I ended up stopping just past the Sockeye Campground setting up camp on the “beach”. Near were I stopped was a spring the flowed into the lake keeping a small area of open water. This was great meaning I would not have to melt snow for water.
By the time I had started to set up camp it was T-shirt weather being in the 40’s. First item on the agenda was to put my beer, Ashi draft (as the label states a beer for all seasons) in the refrigerator to cool down. The tent went up pretty quickly put the sleeping bag in to fluff up. Shucked the cold weather gear down to my long under ware, put out a thermarest on the snow and layer back to soak up the sun. After a short cat nap started fixing supper something freezer dried. Freezed dried food for backpacking has only one thing going for it, the fact that who will be eating it is probably starving from the hike. Any way I’m sure it tasted good especially washed down by a perfectly chilled Asahi.
The sun goes down around 6pm and with the temperature. The cold weather layers go back on and I retreated to the tent. This was in the days before I had an iPod but I had a Sony minidisc player that had hours of CBC Radio Mystery Theater programs on it. Hung my candle lantern up from the ceiling and started to settle in for a night of CBSRMT. After an hour of two the temperatures were falling into the 20’s so it was time to retreat to the sleeping bag. That’s were I stayed most of the night except for an occasional foray out to check out the stars which are astounding at 6500 feet and miles from the nearest light. Got to listen to a numbers of the CBSRMT programs from 1974. Most included the news reports from that time. Got to listed to Watergate as it unfolded and news about rising gas prices and the poor economy and high unemployment rates the first recession of my time. You could change a few of the names (not all) and it would be like listening to current affairs. It was a reasonably comfortable night with the temperature probably down to the upper teens.
Morning was brisk but after brewing up some water for hot chocolate and oatmeal the sun was starting to melt the condensed frost from the tent and I could start to beak down the camp. The trip out was pretty easy the soft snow was mostly frozen so with the snowshoes it was pretty easy to get to the road. I again tied the snowshoes to the pack and booted it out quickly. All and all a pretty quiet neighbor hood. Really a beautiful place to snowshoe into. For those who don’t enjoy a cold night out it could easily be snowshoed into from the road and back in just a day.
An alternate route is to Point Campground on the west side of the lake. I did this trip the of
I think the east side gives you some of the best views of the mountains but Point campground is a more “comfortable” campground. For some reason I don’t have many pictures from the walk in. The view from the visitors center is one of the great views. Guess I now have a reason to go back.