Upper Silver Lake Backpacking Overnighter Hike

This weekend was a LOT of fun! We met at about 4:00 pm on Friday and all piled in to the ultimate of scout-mobiles, Brother Whiteheads suburban. Once we all got our backpacks loaded up and weighed, everything was packed into the vehicle. Depending on what each of us brought with us and carried for the patrol, our packs weighed between 22 pounds to about 32 pounds. After about a 45-60 minute drive up American Fork Canyon, we arrived at Silver Lake Flats. Then we set out on our backpacking overnighter journey- a hike that is over 2 miles one way. It was said that we climbed about 1,200 feet in elevation before we reached our destination, which was about 8,500 feet above sea level. It took over 2 hours to hike up. We camped on the side of a lake, each of us paired up and slept in 2 man tents. We began fishing immediately once we arrived. It was a fairly strenuous hike with all of our gear on our backs, but definitely worth the effort. The majestic mountains and glaciers still high above us were breathtaking to view.

I think that Cottonwood Canyons were just about a mountain top or two away from where we were. A couple of forest rangers and a bunch of other scout troops were also camping overnight as well. The rangers told us that the most recent bear sighting was about 2 miles away. That was reassuring! Open campfires have been banned from the area for about ten years, one ranger said. So we had a delicious meal for dinner- hot dogs and instant potatoes, cooked on our little backpacking single burner. With all of the energy we used to hike up there, those hot dogs were the best hot dog dinner we'd had all day!

We got so caught up on fishing that it soon got dark. After we ate, we cleaned up ever bit of food and confiscated all treats, candy and leftover food from each of us and put it all in doubled up plastic bags. Then, in the dark and using dark suckers, we found two trees and hung our food up high, far away from our campsite, for proper precautions to not attract a bear. Looking back, it would have been a lot easier to do that in the day when we could actually see. Note to self for next time I guess.

We had a small campfire program, without the campfire. We used dark suckers as sources of not dark instead. We learned about "How Bear Lost His Tail", from Native American Lore, and the history of our American Flag, by Francis Scott Key.

On Saturday morning, we found that some of us slept pretty good, while others would have been better off sleeping in a gravel pit with jagged stones. We had instant oatmeal and pop tarts for breakfast. We fished around for another while. We are sad to say that only a few nibbles to our lines was the only bit of excitement that came from fishing. So for additional entertainment, one of the scouts was feeling rather adventurous and jumped into the lake at 9:00 am or so. Check it out!



We finished up our adventures, cleaned up camp, filled our bottles with filtered water from the lake and headed back. It only took about an hour and 20 minutes to get down.

This was a fun hike! Each of us had a great time, although we might be a little sore for a while afterwards.