Palisades Creek Trail

So Jed and I are exhausted from our first backpacking excursion of the year on Palisades Creek Trail in Targhee National Forest. We camped at Upper Palisades Lake which was 6.7 miles and 1100' elevation gain from the trailhead. We had planned a super gentle hike just to get out there again and to try out our new gear but we were surprised to find the trail a little harder than we'd planned, especially when on the way down it got up to 95°! We're not in shape right now so we had to push ourselves and are pretty sore now but we had a lot of fun and saw some cool wildlife. :)

Saturday morning we headed to Idaho Falls to a store we didn't even know was there called Idaho Mountain Trading on Shoup Ave to get a bear canister. I think we may do more shopping there than Sportsman's from now on; it's a pretty cool store! We even met a guy from Ferndale, WA (near Bellingham where I left a large chunk of my heart, gosh I love that place so much) who convinced me that Vibram FiveFingers aren't as weird as they look. Tried some on and they're kinda cool actually. He also convinced us to get bear pepper spray that came with little belt holsters. $150 later (ugh..) we are much more bear-attack-proof.

Then after some giant burritos at Adalberto's, off we went to the trailhead outside of Irwin, about an hour east of Idaho Falls. And off we went marching. It was a hot but nice day and we were out of shape. Both our fingers swelled in the altitude, heat, and lack of circulation from the pressure of our packs on our shoulders.

It was really beautiful and we saw lots of wildlife including moose, a mule deer, rabbits, marmots, several snakes (Racers, I think), hawks, robins, and lots of Monarch and blue butterflies. Most the wildlife didn't care that we were around and some were over friendly like the marmots who hung around our camp.

We rested at the Lower Lake and then hiked up to the Upper Lake where we camped. I can't believe I didn't take a pic of our tent but it worked fantastically and we really like the design. We also really like our sleeping bags and groundpads, though I slept more terribly than I usually do while camping. I'm taking Melatonin next time. The MSR PocketRocket and IsoPro canisters were great and the SteriPen was easy and quick to use and neither of us have gotten sick yet, so it must work!

Jed enjoyed his high Calorie MREs (my dad and I inadvertently starved him when we did High Divide Loop/Seven Lakes Basin in the Olympics 2 years ago so much more food was required this time) and I had my first freeze-dried-eat-out-of-the-bag trail food! Backpacker's Pantry makes several vegan trail meals and I tried the Chana Masala and the Peanut Butter and Raisin Oatmeal and am pleased to report that they were both really tasty! I'm a definite fan of freeze-dried meals for the trail.

After a crumby night's sleep we packed up and headed back down. Although it got at least up to 95° we made it down in half the time it took us to get up the night before. I ploughed through my wall and got my second wind on the way down so I pushed Jed through the end. He definitely had to push me through most the rest of the hike though, so good for me, haha.

I did the way up in Chacos since I didn't want to wear my clunky hiking boots. I got some little blisters on the inner ball of my feet but they were really comfy so I think it'll just get some moleskin for next time.

Because of the blisters, I wore my Lands End Trekkers on the way down and ended up with much larger blisters and a bruised toenail because my feet moved around too much in them. I did years of pointwork in ballet and never had a bruised toenail before so these guys get a 0 for hike-ability.

Other than my beat up feet, I got some sunburn on my upper arms where I hadn't gotten a tan yet and must have missed spraying sunscreen, and general aches from pushing myself hard on the trail (back, shoulders, glutes, calves). Jed has tiny blisters on his feet, a mean sweat rash on his shoulder and angry skin on his back, and aches in roughly the same spots.

After the drive back with the AC blasting, we tanked up with more Adalberto's (see Jed's carne asada fries below), headed home to shower off, and then had a pretty unproductive evening staring at the wall because we were so tired, haha. It was good fun though and a good accomplishment. We tested out our gear, got ourselves out there, and pushed ourselves to be awesome. We will be out there again in a couple more weeks! :)