Seven Lakes Basin

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After a long month of school Eric and I decided to take a break by going into the sky lakes basin wilderness for three days. Not really knowing much about it we left with our trusty GPS and enough food for three days. Our hike in was relatively easy. It was about five miles until we reached the first lake. We found our campsite pretty quickly, but decided to put down our packs and hike around for awhile just in case we found another one. We hiked for about half a mile until we found the next lake. After searching we decided to go back to the first site we saw. We quickly put up the tent then headed to the lake for a swim. We were the only humans for miles so we decided the hell with swim suits and went for a little skinny dip. The lake felt great after a long hike. That night we started a small fire, cooked dinner, then went to bed.

The next day we left our gear and went to the top of the highest peak that we saw, which was called devils peak. It was about 1500ft higher then we were at the time. It took us a long two hours to reach the top, but we did it. We had to hike through a lot of snow to get there though. The view from the top was breathtaking. It overlooked all seven lakes in the basin to the north, Mt. Mcloughlin and Mt. Shasta to the south, Kalamath river to the east, and three large peaks to the west. We had our lunch, then I build my rainbow out of rocks at the very top. We were taking a loop so our hike down was very different. We ran into more snow that was very difficult to pass. Eric had to make big snow holes for me to step in so I wouldn't slip and fall to my death. We saw many different animal prints that I assume were black bear prints, but we never saw one during our trip. We passed by all the lakes on the way back and took our time enjoying the scenery. When we arrived back at our camp it was almost time for dinner, so we just relaxed in the hammock for the rest of the night.

We spent our last day in the wilderness relaxing, swimming, and packing up. We woke to find that we had a visiter last night. We were unsure of what visited us but it was clear from the tracks that someone was curious about us. On our way back we passed a few other campers on their way into the basin. It was a easy five miles back out to the car, with our packs a little lighter and our souls a little brighter.

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