Moore’s Lake Hike – Gospel Hump Wilderness

Moore’s lake, in Idaho’s Gospel Hump Wilderness, is accessible only by a hiking trail.  We took our first hiking trip as a young family there almost 11 years ago.  You read correctly, this is a story from 11 years ago.  This was before our last child, Cassidy, was born. The point of this story is to remind fellow photographers to not forget the memories while you are capturing the beauty.  I took these pictures with my first digital camera, the Canon 20D.  I still have it and it still takes great pictures, you just can’t see them very well on that tiny screen.  Oh yeah, the memories.   It was August 12th, 2006 according to the metadata.  Holly and I wanted to go on a hiking trip as a family.  She and I had worked out a lot on the treadmill and we thought we could handle it.  Our four kids had not been though, but they were kids, right?

We did create some great memories that day, well most of us did.  You see, the hiking trail is between 3 and 4 miles to Moore’s lake and mostly downhill.  This was great until we started hiking back to the pickup.  The trailhead is about 7600 feet and the lake is at about 6300 feet.  The high altitude means that the weather was perfect for wildflowers still in August.

Before the trailhead is a great view of Upper Gospel Lake.

There were also tons of butterflies along the trail!

There was this awesome curved tree along the trail!  I grabbed the closest kid and had her pose.  Rocky was always a good sport for pictures until she became a teen.

This other tree really got my attention also.  It just seemed to be enduring through a lot of stuff.  It was dead, but it wouldn’t fall.

It was a beautiful day and such a pleasant walk down the trail to Moore’s lake.

I mentioned that “most” of us have good memories of that day.  Our oldest daughter, Allie remembers it a little more harshly.  Since we walked downhill most of the trip down to Moore’s lake,  we had to walk uphill most of the way back.  This picture tells the story pretty well.  We were almost all the way back.  Aaron and Rocky were up with me,  Kirstie was showing a little fatigue, and my wife Holly was having to push the protesting Allie.

Even though Allie emphatically says “No” when asked if she would like to go hiking to Moore’s lake again,  she says it with a smile.  In fact, we all smile when we think back to Holly pushing her up that hill.  Here she is this evening with the second grandson she has given us, Oliver.

So, looking back, I got some pretty nice pictures of the Idaho wilderness and I got some great pictures of my family.  Go on adventures with your family.  It’s worth it, even if you have to push them along.

Do you have similar stories?  Let me know in the comments below!