Honestly, this trip was supposed to be the Alice/Toxaway Loop. From the title you can gather that a loop trip did not manifest into fruition. I spent a good amount of time researching it and gathering every single detail I could find. It’s important I know everything I can about a trail when taking a small child on a long multi day trip. This trail came highly recommended by several people. I loved that it was a loop so you get more views. I loved it was adjacent to a water source so I could cut down on water weight and I loved all the pretty curated Instagram photos I saw. I can confirm the mosquitos could carry away a small child. I can confirm there are several river crossings, but it was a bad snow year so some rock hopping allowed us to keep our feet dry. I built it up in my mind to be THE trip of the summer. It was a trip alright.
We drove 6 1/2 hours to the Tin Cup trailhead. It was a balmy 88 degrees as we arrived around lunchtime. There are several lessons to be learned from this trip so I will share these lessons with you as we go. The first is starting out after noon and having a time crunch to Alice Lake. The climb to Alice was 7.5 miles to our campsite. The parking lot was almost full on a Tuesday and you do need permits, but they are self issued at a register 1.5 miles in. If I were to do this again and arrived around noon I would of started the loop in the opposite direction making Farley or Toxaway our first stop. Farley is over two miles shorter. Now if I was kidless the 7.5 miles wouldn’t seem like a time crunch, but have you ever rushed a 4 year old? You don’t. I already went into this knowing it was going to be a push. He can move at a decent 2 mph pace, but factors like them falling asleep before the trailhead or it being hot can slow things down. You always have to budget fudge time in and make sure you have some sort of motivator like their favorite candy to ration out to them.
Everything before the switchbacks is pretty flat. You pass Petitt lake and then wander through the pines before you start your climb up the switchbacks. The switchbacks are an enjoyable climb, but are exposed with granite surrounding you. The heat radiates back up at you from the rocks making you real toasty on an already hot day. Another case for starting the trail early or from the other direction. This is the section that bodies line the side of the trail in shady areas. Where you can hear backpackers giving others pep talks. Heat can zap performance while hiking. Couple that with not staying hydrated and your trip can go off the rails. I keep salt tabs that I dispense to myself and the kidlet while backpacking. It helps with dehydration, cramping and fatigue. These are an essential item when I do trail races and they translate beautifully when backpacking. You can find them at REI or your local running store. The skratch labs strawberry lemonade drink mixes are tasty and help kick it up to high gear as well. When backpacking I find I sweat a lot and if I’m not getting enough salt and sodium I bonk.
I felt the it was a pretty hike up until El Capitan, but you don’t get the quintessential backcountry Sawtooth feels until you clear the switchbacks. This is where the magic starts to happen. Where I started getting excited, but also nervous. I was seeing big crowds on trail. A lot of them wearing backpacks. Since we started so late I was nervous we might have a hard time finding a campsite.
There are a lot of campsites around Alice. A lot. But there are also a ton of people. I haven’t ever experienced huge weekday crowds like this. Especially when the hike is over 7 miles. It’s a mild 1,518 feet of climbing. So, that might play into it. Or maybe Alice and her beauty is known far and wide. She lives up to the hype. I however did notice how trashed it was around the lake. It blew my mind. Garbage everywhere. Toilet paper, eggshells, sunflower seeds strewn about and orange peels thrown in the lake. It wasn’t just our campsite. It was everywhere. It broke my heart to see such a delightful and captivating area disrespected. I did take some trash and packed it out. You should always pack out your toilet paper. This was probably the biggest ick leave no trace principle in concept. Who wants to carry out their poopy TP? I’ve honestly found if I’ve put a gallon ziplock bag inside a dry bag and use that for my wet trash and TP that I’ve never smelt a smelly kind of smell coming from my trash bag. For women a KULA Cloth cuts down on TP when going Pee. If you don’t know what a KULA Cloth is I highly recommend googling it. Game changer!
The next day we planned a short relocation to Twin Lakes. I’ve heard no one camps there. It was meant to be a morale building day for the kids after they rocked the hike in with zero complaints. Twin Lakes is a short climb from Alice. You gain a measly 228 feet in the space of 1.63 miles. I found a lot of people do indeed camp there. We did find a great campsite and met some of our neighbors. Which they probably heard our kids play their strange game of Mountain Hospital all afternoon. What is Mountain Hospital? It’s where the figurines we brought the kids to play with hike up a mountain and fall off. If that’s not morbid enough a rescue team will go out and retrieve the injured and take them to the hospital to get better. Our kids might be delightfully strange and unusual, but they also might make a great SAR team member one day.
By the end of the night we decided the kids were fine and didn’t need another morale building day. We’d hike to Farley tomorrow and then hike out the next. However in the early morning I woke up to the sound of light sporadic rain coupled with an intense smell of smoke. Was ash falling from the sky?!?! I jumped from my tent to witness that there was a big problem. We were socked in by thick smoke and had no idea where the smoke was coming from, but it had to be in the vicinity. I knew immediately we’d have to evacuate. I had been looking forward to climbing the pass between Twin and Toxaway Lake. I secretly hoped we had to go that way. I woke up the grown ups and they agreed to start packing and asked me to climb the pass real quick and report back which way we needed to go. I also used my garmin inreach to contact a friend and ask her to search where the fire was. I climbed the pass and sure enough Toxaway direction looked worse. I shuffled back down as the text from my friend came through the garmin. There was a small fire on the Toxaway side of the loop. Although it was contained shortly after it started the air was burning our nostrils as we breathed in. It was time to pull the plug and gtfo. The loop I had planned all winter and spent countless hours prepping the kidlets for was kiboshed. I can’t tell you how much this hurt. The silver lining is the Sawtooths didn’t burn that day. That would’ve been devastating.
My pack and my feelings were hurting that day. I’ve never not finished a backpacking route. This wouldn’t be my only unfinished trip of the year either. Both not because of the child.
As we walked past Alice Lake and peoples campsites you could see them furiously packing up and coughing. There were still people coming up trail and the ranger at the bottom was more concerned w off leash dogs than air quality. I later posted the pic of twin lakes on a local Idaho FB page about the current condition and I was suprised by the responses I got. A little smoke is no match for Idahoans. I had races this summer so lung capacity was important to me, I was also concerned with the kiddos lungs. Essence of campfire was thick in the air and I already had a headache from breathing it in. Goodbye Sawtooths. Hello unfinished business. I did learn that the Sawtooths are famous for smoke rolling through from California wild fires. Purple Air is a free app you can download to look at air conditions before you go. I usually plan two trips. It was this or Winds. If I would’ve known about purple air we would’ve done Winds instead. But, you live and learn. Am I right?
One last piece of information would be to watch your pack. The rodents are brave and aggressive. My sister left some snacks in a pocket near her waist belt while she set up her tent. It was chewed through within minutes. Get to camp. Get all food and smelly items out of your pack and secure them.
My overall opinion of the Sawtooths is that the more popular areas like Alice Lake are overly crowded and trashed. On my FB groups I would always be suprised by how much hate was expressed with out of staters coming to the Sawtooths and trashing the place. Y’all what I saw was a group effort!!!!! You can’t just blame it on out of staters. But while traveling especially in different states it’s really important to act like we are visiting someone else’s home. Treat the place with respect and pick up after yourself. I get why there was that disdain. To hear about the trash problem in this area is one thing, to experience it is an experience all in itself. While Alice lake is a show stopper and I have unfinished business with that loop that taunts me, I probably would of gone somewhere else. Too many people and too much trash. Sending all my love Sawtooths! Hopefully people see what they have and start giving you the love you deserve.
Exploring the Wasatch and Beyond 