swift creek trail
This weekend I went backpacking with some old friends I hadn’t backpacked with in a while. We went to the Trinity Alps Wilderness. I’ve been out to the Canyon Creek trail in the Trinity Alps a few times (one of my favorite places to backpack), most recently during July 4th weekend, but this weekend we went to a trail that was new to me called the Swift Creek Trail.
The group– Dan, Robert and Derrick entering the Trinity Alps Wilderness.
The trail is called Swift Creek trail. It crosses over the creek a few times, but none of the crossings were difficult. The creek is not all that swift.
A few miles in there’s a cabin called Foster Cabin. It’s a bit creepy looking from the outside.
But you can stay at the cabin, and it actually doesn’t look to bad inside, if you ignore the fact that the bottom bunks look like makeshift coffins.
Our campsite was near this big meadow called Mumford Meadows.
We camped at Mumford Meadows and day hiked up to Horseshoe Lake. The hike into Mumford Meadows isn’t too bad, but to get to Horseshoe lake you have to get over this big climb.
Horseshoe Lake looks like many of the other high alpine lakes I’ve been too. Supposedly there’s decent fishing here, but we weren’t able to catch anything. But then I didn’t really try either– I spent most of my time napping in my hammock.
The first night I slept in my hammock, but it rained the second night, so I slept in my tent.
My dinners were both dehydrated meals leftover from previous camping trips. I dunno what I was thinking when I bought dehydrated chili. The fact that it’s chili means it causes gas. The fact that it’s dehydrated means it causes gas. So the fact that it’s dehydrated chili means it causes massive explosive gas. For breakfast I brought ramen– I think from now on I need to bring more ramen– the spicy warm broth really hits the spot on cold days. And as an added bonus it doesn’t have the explosive gas problems of dehydrated chili. I was running low on fuel for my canister stove, so I had brought some Esbit tablets as backup fuel. Those things don’t really work all that well– so I ended up boiling a couple of pots of water the old fashioned way using fire instead.
Apparently the Swift Creek Trail isn’t as popular as the Canyon Creek Trail. Every time I’ve backpacked on the Canyon Creek Trail I’ve seen at least half a dozen other groups. But on this trip we only saw a couple of groups besides us. The scenery isn’t as spectacular out here, so it’s less traveled by people, but because of that there’s more wildlife. We actually had deer come into our campsite several times. But I guess that in and of itself isn’t all that special– so backpacking on the Swift Creek trail isn’t all that spectacular, so I probably wouldn’t come back here. But still, it was a nice weekend getaway, and a good time catching up with friends that I haven’t backpacked with in a while.
