Idaho Wilderness-Girls’ Backpack!2 min read time

We are all close to 60, some a bit less, some a bit more. We’ve hiked together, run rivers together, cared for babies and children together. We’ve done a lot of laughing, a bit of crying, and experienced just a whole lot of life together. Wilderness has been a big part of our lives through it all. So in the freedoms the final third of life affords, it made sense to continue these precious threads of connection and revisit our days of back packing in the wilderness. Together.

Sally really made it happen: our maven of huckleberries, wilderness navigator, and organizer extraordinaire. She brought us all together in the beginning of the season to plan a summer of women’s backpacking adventures in our backyard of Idaho wilderness. We waxed enthusiastic and put four such adventures on the calendar, still knowing how life happens and that we’d not all make it to every one.

Upper Duck Lake (our name for it, it’s unnamed on the map)(see why we need Sally?) turned out to be the only one we did all make it to. And what a beautiful place it is. We came up over the rise after about an hour and a half of hiking (and bushwhacking) to a vision of green lush grasses, bright wildflowers, mountains and a mirror calm lake. OKAY! I can spend some time here all right!

I felt pretty euphoric. Unfortunately, so did the mosquitoes. But we won’t linger on that…Tents were pitched in all manner of delightful spots:

There was so much to do, but you can probably guess what I did….play with the camera!

And there were great spots to hang out:

And we had the occasional curious visitor.

We missed our guys…well, sorta…it was just so EASY with just the Wilderness Women! No wrangling about where to put the tent, where to go when, how to start the stove properly, etc.  But we did miss them. In fact, I think most of us went back with, “OMG you’ve just got to see this place…”. ;<)

There are more images of this and other Idaho wilderness locations you might enjoy in the Gallery. Check it out!