Cliff Lake with Emma

Since the twins have been born, Emma has sadly taken a back seat to the twins.  It's not intentional and she does still get way too much attention, but I still feel badly for her from time to time.  All growing up, I hated being the older sibling who "should know better" and who was always in the wrong.  And here are Dohnele and I doing the same thing to Emma.  As a way to make up for it, I wanted to do some daddy-daughter time.  I've been wanting to do this hike with her for a long time: head up to the Sky Lakes Wilderness to check out the beautiful lakes, BUT avoid people.  I kept putting it off and putting it off, but finally made it happen yesterday.

I wanted to hike into Cliff Lake which based on pictures, looked to be the prettiest in all the basins.  Plus, it is located about as far from trailheads as you can possibly get (5.5 miles in!)  So we set out alarms for early on Saturday which was excruciating.  Picked up a compass from work, gassed up, and headed to the Cascades.  We drove the Sevenmile Marsh Trailhead on the Klamath side of the Cascades and headed in.

It took us two and a half hours of relatively gentle uphill hiking to get to the lake.  Emma whined a bit, but when I asked her if she wanted to turn back, she always responded "Yeah, but I also really want to see the lake!"  So kept going.

 The cliffs above Cliff Lake (above and below)

 Devil's Peak and Cliff Lake (above and below)

 Devil's Peak (above and below)

The lake was indeed beautiful and of course the weather was perfect.  Recent rain had knocked all the smoke out of the sky (which was brilliant and clear) and the lake was equally crystalline.  And the cliffs were very impressive.  I'm glad we didn't pack in camping gear, but it would have been fun to camp and explore some more.  As it was, we had a picnic and headed back to the car.  Even though the return was downhill, it took us just about as long as the hike in because we took more breaks.