Yes, Another Golden Trip - Anniversary Addition

[PeteZahut]

I wasn't going to start a post about this since there have been a number of posts recently about Barnaby but I thought what the heck, I may as well share anyways. So you will have to bear with me with the sights and scenery seen a number of times already. Sorry about the big pictures, I am using my wife's droplets in Photoshop to resize for easier emailing and they are a little big.

 

So my wife wanted a hiking challenge to test herself and I thought why not really test her with a hike up to Barnaby Lake. Six years ago on our honeymoon we got skunked at Michelle Lakes (heli trip) so I had a hunger to see a Golden up close and personal. With the kid shipped off to the grandparents we packed up the trailer and headed to camp at Lynx Creek with some friends. I managed to talk one of our friends to come up with us who had attempted this with me before only to be turned away by weather. This was not going to be the case this year.

 

The hike is everything that everyone has described. Breathtaking and tough. The usual sights of the Castle valley:

 

 

 

My poor friend who joined us. This was his second adventure with us and at the end of this one he said to us "Don't ever ask me again to join you on one of these!" Priceless.

 

My wife on the hike. Shows the incline pretty good:

 

We reached the first lake in a 1 hour 45minutes. Pretty good time but still took time to rest on the way up. Me attempting the first lake but nothing seen anywhere:

 

Another view of Barnaby and my wife doing what she does best, capturing the moments:

 

After a short visit on the first lake we headed to the second. Fishing was extremely tough as the winds were ridiculous coming off the mountain. It was such a beautiful place to be:

 

 

The fish were actually pretty tough to catch that day. Between the many refusals and the wind knots I did finally manage to net one. They are even more beautiful in person:

 

The hike down I thought was worse then the hike up. I don't know if it was the blisters from the newer boots or my quads burning as I try not to go racing down the mountain but it was definately not as enjoyable.

 

The next day was spent fishing Lynx Creek and Carbondale. I don't want this thread to start down the random camping issue but it is ridiculous the amount in that area. A few photos from that excursion:

My beautiful wife with a beautiful Cuttie

 

Hillbilly toilet:

 

Screaming Pines (we dubbed it that as the wind whistling through the burn on the Carbondale was quite eery):

 

All in all it was an absolutely incredible weekend. Got to spend our anniversary at a special place, a lot of drinks and good laughs with even better friends. We did miss our little one as it was pretty quiet without her. Fortunate for her and unfortunate for us she got to catch her first fish while fishing at Lake Diefenbaker with her grandparents. Now that is priceless!

 

[slingshotz]

That's amazing, we fished past that hillbilly toilet two weekends ago (not using it of course!). If you think that random camping was bad on the Carbondale, you should have seen it on the Aug long weekend when we were there. The good thing though was that everyone seemed well behaved and I didn't see crap loads of garbage everywhere. We drove over Lynx but didn't fish it, it looked really nice too.

[Heimdallr]

I'm glad you posted. I like having the shared experience of fishing and of places with everyone on here. Looks like you had a very memorable time and that's what it's all about.

[Hawgstoppah]

looks like a lot more snow was there then when I was up there on Aug 8. Was this a couple weeks ago? Great pics!!! Yeah the hike down hurt pretty bad on my feet, next time I need proper hiking boots instead of my wading boots I think!! Having a good strudy stick sure helped me maintain balance and stop from cartwheeling down though!.

[PeteZahut]

looks like a lot more snow was there then when I was up there on Aug 8. Was this a couple weeks ago? Great pics!!! Yeah the hike down hurt pretty bad on my feet, next time I need proper hiking boots instead of my wading boots I think!! Having a good strudy stick sure helped me maintain balance and stop from cartwheeling down though!.

 

Yeah it was the weekend before on the August long weekend. I only wish the wind would not have been as horrific as it was. There was definately a lot of fish in that second lake. Oh well, next time.

 

I can`t believe you hiked up there in your wading boots! That would have definately made the hike more difficult in my opinion. Although I had great grip with my hiking boots, the fact they had only been used a couple of times on simple hikes and the resulting blisters I got made me a little grumpy at times.