Canoeuphoria - Upper Priest Lake 7/24-25

 

Upper Priest from our camp just after sunset.

Canoe camping on Upper Priest Lake was dreamy, narcotic, a lake of the Gods where even the few weekday powerboaters seemed insignificant and the water and sun and sand enveloped us in a bliss-state. I've never experienced a lake time like that. It was hard to leave. You enter a 2.5 mile thoroughfare-artery from the heart pump of Priest Lake to the alpha waved mind of Upper Priest. Then, with each stroke of the paddle into the clear blue-green water, you forget a little more and more.  These two priests seem to have a direct line to way up high. Upper Priest has no permanent human habitation - no cabins, no McMansions, no nothing. We only get to visit here. It's wild and free.

Princess Bratalie feeding the ducks at our lake place. This was the day before the trip. Note the padded seats and thigh braces I added to the canoe, there's also a lashing kit I installed. The ducks became hooked on bread and later took to sitting on the dock and crapping. I attached a toy fake snake to the dock and they haven't been back since.

Loading up the morning of. I used lots of straps and the canoe and kayak rode great. The kayak placement is a tad unorthodox but it worked.

Loaded up on the shores of Priest Lake. We launched from the Beaver Creek Campground. Great launch area. As you can see I packed a lot of stuff into the canoe but it rode like a dream. Very stable with a load on. Packed some snorkeling gear in the back hatch of the kayak but nothing else. Kept it light for Shane.

Our camp. We camped at Geisinger's Campground which was completely empty. People dropped by during the day to use the beach but nobody else camped there. I'd guess that night on all of Upper Priest there were only 2 to 4 other camping parties. It was an awesome campground with bear-proof food storage containers and pit toilets not nearly as disgusting as Kim and Shane made them sound. Oh yeah, the forest service campgrounds are completely free and first come first serve.

 

They sure the hell do! That's why we cooked only freeze-dried foods (which were shockingly good) and kept a scrupulously clean camp. Saw bear paw prints all over the sand at the campsite and several trees had bark stripped which is the bear's way of saying: Wanna piece of this, hippie camper bitch? Didn't see any bears (saw an antlered moose in the thoroughfare) but at dusk something large and noisy created a stir in the woods right behind our tents, Kim blasted the little compressed air boat horn and it vamoosed. Bear? Probably. It was loud.

We paddled about during the day, sunbathed on the soft white sand beaches in camp, wandered in the clear sandy shallow water along the shoreline (the huckleberries were either green or absent). Kim and Shane made this weird "water sculpture" thingy out of branches in the lake. I'm all like "been a lake witchcult member long, Kim?"

 

Me sitting by the campfire at night. Kim shot this from the tent then went to sleep. Shane was asleep. Me, in the throes of acute/chronic bearanoia sat up feeding the fire until midnight. That light on my forehead? A Petzl Tikka headlamp with 35,000 lumens of white hot power. When the fire died down I'd just aim it in the embers and wham they would explode back to fiery life. I scanned the woods behind the tents a lot with my LCD headlamp and held my can of Counter Assault bear spray with a kung fu death grip. I slept maybe 3 hours total that night.

But it was still the perfect trip.

Comments

[Janet]

OMG, you are back? You are SAFE!!!!! YYYYAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!

Y'know, I would really love to talk about camping with you sometime. Scott and I love to camp, although we bring batteries and watch movies and play video games and stuff. Oh yeah... and we bring the flat screen monitor too. It's "tight". But we love getting out and away from the city, but never as far as you and Kim went. I think it would be a lot of fun if the 4 of us (or more) all went camping though. Freeze dried food.... hmmm... what kind, where did you get it, and how did you cook it?

SO glad you are safe and had a great time. Please post lots of pics - I want to print them and put them on our walls. :)

Love,

Janet

[Bob]

Beautiful pictures. Peaceful. I'm glad no one got attacked by a bear, though it would have made for an interesting post. Try to enjoy the rest of the summer.

[marmitetoasty]

Shunning photos......... bears cant get in ya get if its zipped up, right?..... I doubt I would of slept a wink lol.....

It was scary enough walking in the woods in Maine, us Brits aint use to wild and deadly animals...... I would chant in me head..... no spiders no snakes no bears oh shit..... no spiders no snakes no bears oh shit.... ok, so I was a pussy, but it was scary LOL

Glad you had a super time.... would love to see more photos.... Im one of those saddos that LOVE looking at peopled holiday snaps lol

x

[marmitetoasty]

jebus that sounds double dutch LOL

Edit - Bears cant get in ya tent if its zipped up, right?

x

[susan]

Duuuhhhhh. Uh. I didn't mean to write your name Bob when I typed my comment. I made the second comment. I need a lake vacation.

[Bob]

Bears can rip through a zipped up tent like a bowie knife through butter and come in and eat you or drag you out and eat you. I felt safer outside to tell you the truth.

[marmitetoasty]

Dam, and there I was thinking a bear with its big claws wouldnt be able to manage undoing the zip LOL.....

I would think being dragged out and eaten by a bear would not be a pleasent experience :)

Being dragged out bare by some hunk, now that would be different *ha

x

[joanna]

What a wonderful vacation. Your photos have convinced me that I need to visit Washington State sometime.

[D Huygens]

Did I miss something? I don't see a giant stuffed panda in your canoe.

Great pix and inspiration; we're heading up to the end of the St. Joe River rd. next week for two nights; we'll see if the mama moose who sniffed my tent is still around those parts.

[Bob]

I wanted to do the giant stuffed panda cuz what's cooler than having other paddlers say how cool you are, but I was afraid a confused North Idaho grizzly bear might try to get his bruin on with it and when it inevitably popped he'd be furious and start tearin tents open.

We did pass, on the way back, two kayakers, one of whom had a weirdly cute inflatable dragon thingy floaty on her kayak. Not a panda but then, what is?

Joanna, Upper Priest Lake is just over the Wa border into North Idaho and about 15 miles from the Great White North.

[joanna]

Well, okay. But I still want to visit Washington, the state, not the district.

[kendramama]

Sweeeeeet.... glad your trip was all that and then some. And not embearassing. Or bearly worth the effort of going. And it does sound like you only brought the bear necessities, so the kids had to just bear with the freeze dried dinners. Did you all bear your souls 'round the campfire those nights, or was it just you, forcing yourself to grin and bear it while the young 'uns slept?

Okay, enough of that bear shit. Puns being the lowest form of humor and all that, and I could barely come up with any good ones anyway. See, I stopped- barely was spelled properly.

Just had to hack on ya a bit, since in all these months of HBO'n it with you, this was the first sign of weakness I've observed. And I'm not so sure it's an actual one, even. Perhaps it's just contrived to make us mere mortals feel that blogging with you in our midst is a bit more um, bearable.

Anyway, I'm glad you had a good camping trip. We were also just out in the woods, about 15 miles past the McGee Ranger Station- we drove the Bunco way, too- talk about bumpy! so I'm also still savoring the sheer joy of being out in the middle of nowhere, a full bright set of stars overhead and land untouched by man's rough and careless hands underfoot. Sweeeet.

[Pecky Cox]

Tubob,
Do I have your permission to post one of your pictures in AS THE LAKE CHURNS?? www.priestlaker.com? Please reply to pecky@sisna.com
Thank you in advance.

[glynis]

dave- heading up the joe, too! i think the fishing is lousy, but sure is beautiful country. just got back from the puget sound. so nice, even in rain. orcas island. was glad to be 'home' for a few days.... and the fishing was great. :)

[Desert Cat]

Man, you have the *best* vacations!

[Michael Denuty at The Newport Miner]

I was looking for information for Upper Priest Lake and the Thorofare River for a magazine article and I discovered your amazing website. I would love to use some of your pictures and comments in my article. I work at the newspaper here in Newport.
How I would identify you is substantially up to you.

Mike Denuty

E-mail: theminer@povn.com.