I told Gordon, “Let’s camp at Clayton Lake for a couple of nights and go to Iceberg Lakes. Nobody goes there; we’ll have the place to ourselves. I know a game trail that will take us there with ease. We don’t need a permit, so we can go any time. Pick a date.”
I’m afraid I gave him some misinformation.
I’m always paranoid about parking at the trailhead. We were early enough on a weekday to have no problems, but when we got back to the car on Sunday, a bit after noon, cars were parked for a quarter of a mile down the side of the road.
On the back of my map I had scribbled a note: “about 300 yards past coil of cable, take the game trail to the left, next to a sawn tree trunk.” I probably mentioned the coil to Gordon three or four times. I had a chat with a hiker going the other way and asked her if she saw the coil. She said she had on the way up but not on the way down. The trail had been worked on in a few places and I was wondering if maybe they’d taken the cable away.
All of a sudden, we arrive at Crater Lakes. I never saw the coil. Without the coil as a landmark, it’s a tough ask to pick the right downed tree trunk. So much for finding my nice game trail. Not a big deal, though, as it’s pretty easy navigation. Unfortunately, we never did find a game trail, which surprised and disappointed me.
We arrived at Clayton Lake a few minutes after one. We take the obvious best campsite, at the edge of a large meadow atop a short slope above the lake. Two hours later, two guys show up. There aren’t many places to camp; they ended on a shelf above the other side of the lake.
So much for having the place to ourselves. The next day, another two backpackers showed up and a handful of day trippers visited. The first two backpackers asked, “Are you fishing, or doing anything else exciting?” Different strokes, but I never considered fishing “exciting.” When we told the other backpackers we’d been to Iceberg Lakes, they asked if we fished up there.
After sitting beside Clayton Lake for several quality hours, it’s obvious why people like to fish there: the lake is loaded with fish. So many were rising, there were so many ripples, it looked like it was sprinkling. The fish are pretty well camouflaged, but if there’s no glare on the water, they’re easy to spot. Every one I saw was between six and eight inches long.
Friday night, I discovered that I had a bit of a technical issue. I carry a small battery pack on these hikes so I can charge the phone or the action camera. It’ll even charge my new Steripen. Unfortunately, it wasn’t charging my new phone. Gordon had a battery pack, too, but my phone didn’t like it, either.
The problem is, I haven’t figured out how to use the Insta360 without using the phone. And it puts a surprising load on the phone’s battery. I’d been doing some filming during the afternoon, and, well, the phone battery situation wasn’t good. I’d have to keep the phone turned off except when I was working the Insta.
Saturday, we hiked up to Iceberg Lakes. Clayton is at about 11,000′; Iceberg Lakes are about 700′ higher, just 300′ below the Continental Divide. Reading the map, it looked like it might be possible to climb alongside the outlet of the southern lake. In actuality, that doesn’t look like a very fun route. Instead, we climbed some grassy ramps up the right side and gained the northern lake from the northeast.
It was a fun little climb. We avoided willow and Krumholtz almost entirely and only had to cross a couple of small talus fields. We passed a shelf that the map shows holding one pond; today there were three. About here we encountered Bullwinkle the Moose. He was a big boy, and he was on a mission to visit those three ponds. We were pretty much in his way, but he didn’t care. I kept a small cluster of stunted trees between us as he passed.
The northern Iceberg Lake is sort of gourd-shaped. The smaller, northern part of the gourd is covered with slabs of ice, free-floating – not connected to the shore. The southern lake is nearly round, and about two-thirds ice-bound. Even at the edges, the ice is thick enough to carry a couple of pretty large rocks that had fallen onto the lake over the winter. There’s still a bank of snow on top of the ice. Sapphire pools of water dot the area.
I passed the time relaxing on the saddle above both lakes. Gordon explored, as he usually does. From the saddle, you can see hikers on the Continental Divide Trail. When I first saw them, I thought they were crossing over from Crater Lakes. It’s a busier trail than I’d have imagined; I saw nine hikers in an hour or so.
As can be expected along the Continental Divide, it was on the windy side. After some time at the southern lake and on the saddle between, we looked for a spot out of the wind at the northern lake. We found little relief.
On the hike out, we managed to retrace our footsteps almost exactly, but we did not see Bullwinkle.
Late that afternoon, we were sitting in our camp. Here I should mention that I bought a camp chair. It folds down pretty compactly and weighs only a pound, four ounces. Or is it 1.4 pounds? In any event, I enjoyed relaxing in a chair. We were shooting the shit when we heard a loud splash in the lake. Our friend Bullwinkle walked across the western end of the lake to get to the south shore. He climbed up to where we think the first backpackers were camped the previous night.
Sunday morning, we considered whether we wanted to go out the way we came in, or follow the old trail down the outlet stream that everybody else uses. We stuck with our route. Unfortunately, we traversed around the slope without descending enough, and before long, we were on a ridge about 250′ above Crater Lakes. We backtracked a bit to find a place to descend. It was only near the bottom of our descent when we came across a nice game trail. It was the one I followed out last time, the one I missed on the way in..
Reaching the trail, the first person we met was a volunteer ranger. He quizzed us on our bear etiquette and made some notes in a little memo pad. I wanted to ask, Bugs Bunny style, whatcha writing, doc? I wanted to ask, Dad joke style, if this was going on our permanent record. I behaved.
It was a nice trip. Even if it was more crowded than expected, even if we missed the game trail. Clayton Lake is unspectacular, but I’m jaded. It’s a great place to fish, but bring the heavy-duty bug spray, because it’s a mosquito-rich environment.
