Babyfoot Lake

So my plans to hike part of the Kalmiopsis Rim Trail kinda failed.  We parked at the Babyfoot Lake trailhead and meant to take a connecting trail but missed it (found it later) and ended up at Babyfoot Lake.  I am more out of shape than I'd originally thought and decided to camp at the mini lake and go find the trail I wanted to hike and do a bit of it without a 50 pound backpack.

Babyfoot Lake is barely within the border of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness.  You basically find a metal sign stating the land behind it is a wilderness blah blah blah, then come to the lake.  The lake is only about 9 feet deep, has a few trout in it and has many really big, old trees that have fallen into it over the years.  A nice little place to visit.

I dropped off my pack, hoisted any food and smelly items into a tree then grabbed my day-pack and took off to find my trail.  At first we tried to find where the #1224A (which is the Babyfoot Lake trail) connected to the #1224 (Kalmiopsis Wilderness Rim Trail) on the northwestern side of the lake.  He found bits and pieces of it but it looked like that particular section hadn't been used in years since there was so much stuff grown over it.  The underbrush made it very difficult to navigate and I didn't want to get lost so we turned around and headed back down the Babyfoot Lake trail to find the split.

We did find the split, trail #1126 which connected to the #1124 up about three miles.  I figured we could do that but I didn't know we'd have to climb a killersteep ridge to get up to it first.  We did get to the top of the ridge and hiked out about 1 1/2 - 2 miles along it then stopped for lunch. We could see Babyfoot Lake down below us from up there.  In the picture above, look at the rim. Find the highest spot. That's where we were. A good 700 feet higher than Babyfoot, all climbed within that short mile and a half.

Conker decided that he didn't want to be clean anymore and rolled on the trail during lunch.  He also decided he wanted to decorate himself with tree sap which was a bad idea since it drove him nuts for the rest of the trip.
The rocks up there on the rim were funny, if you poured water on them they hisses really loudly.  I thought there was a snake nearby when I spilled a bit of water and the rocks began to hiss.

After lunch we headed back down to Babyfoot Lake.  We discovered that the trees that had fallen into the lake were very stable so I walked out onto one. Conker didn't really want to go with me but followed anyways.  I jumped in the lake (Conker stayed on the log) and found it to be quite nice.  I figured it'd be cold.

For the next couple hours I let Conker wander around the camp and surrounding section of the lake.  I read while he explored and some menacing looking clouds built up above us.  I knew what the clouds meant, and when thunder began to roll through the valleys I pitched the tent.  I waited until it was actually raining before calling Conker over and introducing him to it.  After the first minute he was fine with it and tried to sleep as rain and eventually hail pelted down on my little orange tent.

Conker decided, before and after the storm, that exploring just the lakeside wasn't good enough.  Wile I was making some tea I looked out at the lake a spotted something on one of the big logs.  It was Conker.  He'd gotten up on the log all on his own, walked out a bit then looked at me.  He kept looking back as he walked out to the very end then walked back.  He turned this into something he did about every 20 minutes. After a bit of exploring, he would go walk out into the lake on a log.

The bugs got a git unbearable as the sun was setting so after dinner we retreated to the tent.  We napped, er, Conker napped while I read, then slowly dozed off as the night fell.
I was suddenly reminded why I don't like camping in the woods when I woke to a crashing sound near the tent and Conker's low growl.  I don't know what kind of animal it was but it sounded big.  Not as big as a bear, maybe a deer, and it vanished as quickly as it had appeared.  The rest of the night was filled with more crashing, snapping and shrieking as the animals of the wilderness paid their nightly visits to the lake.  Conker didn't bark, only growled quietly.  I knew none of these visitors were bears, I've heard a bear outside my tent before and these were different sounds.

Deer, raccoons, skunks and what I found out later to be foxes were the main visitors.  But one of the last to come definitely was a bear.  Heavy yet soft footsteps, snuffing every little scent, scraping it's long claws on random fallen logs as it navigated the area around my tent.  This was the only animal Conker barked at, but it was a very restrained bark.
Surprisingly everything up until then scared me.  The foxes (which make freaky screaming sounds) were the scariest when I first heard them shrieking and crashing about. Two even got into a fight.  The only protection I'd brought with me was that big knife and it stayed right beside me.  I'd picked up the knife when the foxes began to fight, and right that after the bear came.  For some reason holding the knife made me feel better, and the bear either lost interest in the lake and our camp or Conker scared it off when he barked.  It left rather quickly.  Not many other animals visited after that, and the big knife spent the rest of the night inside my sleeping bag.


So!  That was out little adventure to Babyfoot Lake.  I knew already that camping next to a lake, in the wilderness, probably wasn't the greatest idea and paid for it with my sleep, but it was a fun trip anyways and Conker really enjoyed exploring the lake and walking out on the logs.  Next time I go out there it will either be just a daytrip or I'll camp somewhere along the trail I originally wanted to and just stop in at Babyfoot Lake on the way in or out.

Sorry for lack of pictures, my photobucket upload limit has been reached.