Camping in Granddaddy Basin

See & Do #5

Take a Hike

*Warning, a person should be in MUCH BETTER SHAPE before strapping a 50+ pound pack on their back and hiking 16 miles in 2 days!

*Puppies seem to have an endless supply of energy, never tire, and think you are not moving fast enough.

See & Do #99

Visit the Granddaddies

We stopped at Besty Lake for lunch.

We choose to camp at Palisade Lake since Granddaddy lake was so busy.

It was gorgeous.

Josh spent several years working for the Forest Service. He would spend a week in the mountains and then come home for a few days and brag about how beautiful it was. After 8 years of marriage he finally took me up to one of those places.

It was an adventurous trip to say the least. We were in no way prepared for the hike. I was out of breath ten minutes into the hike (it took us 8 hours to reach camp). About 20 minutes into the hike I asked Josh to leave me to rest (die). He hiked to the top of the mountain, dropped his pack and came back for me. I'm not kidding when I brag that I have the most wonderful husband ever! After Josh had took off to get to the top, I had to stop and retie my shoes. A family passed me, and apparently they always stayed within hearing distance to make sure I was okay. When Josh passed them on his way back to get my pack the family mentioned I wasn't too much farther. They asked if I was okay and Josh told them this was my first time backpacking. The wife said he was mean. But since he took my pack up the rest of the mountain, I have to disagree.

Unfortanetly, the top of the mountain wasn't anywhere near camp, it was just the hardest part. I had to strap my pack back on and we continued on. We stopped for lunch at Besty lake and had a nice rest.

We got to camp that night about 4:00. We did some fishing and ate dinner. Sage was such a good dog. She could just go and go and never seem to get tired. But when we finally set up camp, she crashed. She woke up to help me eat dinner and then went back to sleep. Before bed we shortened her chain so she wouldn't scratch on the tent.

At about 1:00 in the morning I needed a bathroom break. I went to the same rock I had used earlier. About halfway through, I had a startled jump because Sage licked me. It didn't register that she shouldn't have reached me...

At about 5:00 Josh took a potty break (without any licking incidents). Sage beat him to the tent. That is when he realized her chain had broke. So she slept with us for a few hours. She was in heaven! I'm pretty sure that when she gets to Heaven she will declare this weekend was the best time of her life.

We had planned to stay longer, but the bugs were bad and the neighboring camps were crowded, large, and rowdy. So we started to a different lake, closer toward the truck, but when we got there we decided our temperpedic mattress sounded heavenly so we continued on out. I may have cried from the pain a few times. We had fun, but we will not be going back until we are in better shape.

Here's a slideshow of the pictures we took. Sorry they aren't in very good order. We took all three cameras and I'm too lazy to rearrage them how I like.