Rediscovering the Central WA cascades

My wife and I took our new 180 for our first camp trailer trip up off White pass a couple weeks ago.  I wanted to go explore around Lost lake which is about four miles east of Rimrock lake by crow.  The last time I camped there was about 60 years ago.  It is about 6 or 7 miles off the highway on a Forest service road that was paved about 30 years ago and looks like it was never maintained so full of pot holes.

The road is quite steep.  Our 2014 Toyota Tacoma V6, six speed manual transmission and towing package handled it well.  The cows were on the FS grazing permit there now and had taken over the primitive campground.

The road ended at Lost lake the last time I was there but it now continues on past so we decided to see where it went.  It was gravel past the lake and much smoother than the first 6 miles of pavement.

The gravel ended in about 4 miles and the dirt road continued.  I made a recon on foot and found a good camp spot just past the end of the gravel.  We had the area to ourselves except for a couple of those new side by side ATVs came by one evening.  They look like the Pope Mobile so that's what I call them.  They slowed down so as not to create any dust when they saw the trailer.  I flagged them down to ask where the road went.  They didn't know.  They were camped at the Airstrip down at Rimrock and were just following their GPSs.

I weighed the hitch before loading the trailer.  The weight includes a 20 pond propane tank, a large 12 volt battery and full fresh water tank.  485 pounds.  We are pretty minimal on packing much so probably near the final loaded weight.

The 180 leveled and ready to enjoy.

The first priority was to take a hike to Long lake.  Last time I was there it was on a trail that started down at Lost lake.  I knew it must be close to our camp.  We found it about in about a mile or so.  Just like I remember.  More of a frog pond than a lake.

A Squadron of draggon flys. they look like baby helicopters hovering around.

The old Shelter built by the CCC.  This one was restored about 30 years ago.  they are getting to be pretty rare.

A fire the next morning to take the chill off.  Camp was at about 4500 feet msl.

I was sitting by the fire and heard a cow bellering for its calf.  Took a little hike to see what it was all about and found them in a meadow about 100 yards behind the Rpod.  Fresh milk!

The sun hitting the ridge behind the meadow.  I looked on my map to see if this meadow had a name. It said Pickle Prairie. I remembered my grandma talking about Pickle Prairie.

I took a walk around the meadow and found the old sign where the old trail entered the meadow.