Kuitan Lake 9/16/22 - 09/18/22

This forum is used to share your experiences out on the trails.
Post Reply
PatrickL
Posts: 27
Joined: June 20th, 2021, 12:38 pm

Kuitan Lake 9/16/22 - 09/18/22

Post by PatrickL » September 18th, 2022, 12:02 pm

My buddy was deer hunting for a week, with a base camp at Kuitan Lake, which is a couple of miles walk from the Robinson Lake trail head. I rolled in late Friday afternoon and shadowed him as he hunted the area to the west a little. I'm not a hunter but it was interesting to watch and learn about it and tromp around off trail which I do not typically do. We sat silently in the woods for a while at a couple of spots then headed back to camp.

The Lake is nice, I had never been there. It's small with some trout. I fished for a few minutes but it got dark pretty quickly and I called it a day. It was very cold Friday night into Saturday morning, felt like maybe the 30s.

Saturday we headed out early and hiked the ridges in the burns south of the lake. Have never hiked through a burn like that, it is serious work! We spent the day hiking around, stopping for a while and watching for deer. We didn't see any bucks but a couple of doe and a fawn, so that was pretty cool to see. Lots of elk, deer, and bear sign.

My buddy had mercy on me and called it by 2 and we bushwacked back to camp and made it by 330 or so. My feet ankles and knees were shot from climbing up and down logs and balancing through all the precarious footing. We fished a little more and my buddy caught a small trout probably just barely could have kept but tossed it back.

By 5 thunder and lightening started. It was close with the first strike about 1 mile away, the next one about 0 miles away. One thunder rumble seemed to go on and on and last for half a minute but was probably more like 10 seconds. The lightening didn't last but the rain did. We spent the rest of the evening trying to talk from our 1 man tents over the rain. Rained off and on all nights but we both managed to keep everything mostly dry. I was able to keep my vestibule dry but unfortunately my buddy had water pool up in his so he got to sleep with his 60 lb hunting pack with him in his tent.

Hustled back to the trailhead this morning and made it home for some pizza and football. Great trip overall, very cool area I had never visited. Felt I got my 6.00 worth.

Saw one other truck when I parked Friday, a tent when we left today, and a different truck parked at the trailhead. Other than that, didn't see anyone else the whole weekend.
Kuitan Lake
20220916_151552.jpg
Burn we hiked through
20220917_093211.jpg
A tree beaten up by a buck shedding velvet
20220917_110436.jpg
Mt. Washington
20220917_100636.jpg

Post Reply