Twin Lakes Weekender

My loadout for the trip. I am still trying to reduce my base weight. For this trip, base weight = 16.5 lbs., and packed weight including water, food, test knives, etc. = 36 lbs.

Oregon never ceases to amaze and please me with its outdoors opportunities. Last weekend I packed into Twin Lakes. I hiked in Friday night to Lower Twin Lake, then Saturday morning into Upper Twin Lake. The hike is not strenuous; more like pleasant. The weather was amazing. Temperatures in the 50s daytime, 40s night. I met a great pair on the north shore of Lower; Eric and JoEllen. I hope I spelled their names right! We talked about hammocks and quilts for a few minutes. Their young dogler ran around enthusiastically and boldly rubbed himself on our legs like a big scruffy cat.

I hiked around to the south end of the lake and backtracked to the spot I liked best. Evening was heralded by calmness and a gradual drop in temperature. I took a video as I set up my hammock. I slept very well and awoke to some hot chocolate and oatmeal for breakfast. I tried bringing honey this trip instead of maple syrup, but the honey was cold and therefore very difficult to get out of the bottle and into the oatmeal. I also noticed over the weekend that I am using about 30% to 50% more alcohol in the cool outdoors than in my kitchen testing. I expected this, and am not very surprised. I need to re-calculate the advantage of alcohol vs. butane now for my cooking. Slow cooking things like biscuits and pizza are problematic with alcohol; not so with my Peak 1 butane stove, which has the best simmer control of any butane stove I have used.

The hike up to Upper Twin Lake was very nice. I watched a deer float up the hillside, as you can see in the video.

Upper Twin Lake is a great spot. I hiked up past the lake, where the trails come together for the PCT and the trail up to Palmateer Creek. I was looking for a good camping spot and a standing, fairly young, dead Balsam Fir tree to cut up for a bow drill set, and to provide some bushcraft knife testing. Camping was possible, but too much blowdowns and bushwhacking for this trip, so I decided to hike back and make camp at Upper Twin Lake. I did find the dead balsam, and use my new Laplander saw. Great piece of kit!

I set up camp and filmed knife testing videos while sets of people and sets of horse riders went by. I was a little off the edge of the lake, so most did not see me.

Evening with a nice fire going and some good food, was spent watching a pair of deer, mother and child, working up the courage to get closer and closer to me in my camp. Lovely sight.

Night came on with the choirs of frogs singing all around the edges of the lake. The deer constantly walked in and out of my camp, sometimes snuffling and pawing at my kit near the fire, waking me many times from another restful sleep.

I stayed in late, lazily dozing in my ultra-comfortable Hennessey hammock and Jacks-R-Better quilts, until nature called me to duty. Hot chocolate and oatmeal with too much honey and some cinnamon later, I packed up and left about 10:30. I made some selfie videos to use as a basis for some Mother's Day video cards.

The hike out was as pleasant as the hike in. I found these flowers, which I later identified as Blue Anemone, or Oregon Anemone. Very pretty! I had a great and relaxing time here at Twin Lakes, identifying trees and making videos, exploring around and meeting up with a lot of wildlife. Be back soon!