Loon lake is famous for a 1943 crash of a B-23 Dragon bomber. The wreckage is still there with signs sharing the story of the crash and rescue. It is about a 3 hour drive to the trail head from Boise. There are two trails you can take to get to the lake. The 5 mile trail from Chinook camp ground, and the 15 mile trail from Ponderosa camp ground. After careful consideration Mike choose to take the 15 mile hike to the lake. I leave how to get there and which trail to take totally up to Mike to decide since I am really bad with reading a map.
We drove to the trail head after Mike got off work and spent the night there. After a quick breakfast we were off. It was still pretty cold in the morning so I wished I had brought my gloves.
It was an easy hike, mostly hiking by the
Secesh river, but some areas were very steep and narrow;one wrong step would surely send you down the cliff to sudden death. The water was so clear we could see some fish swimming in the river from the trail.
Even though it wasn't a really hard steep trail, 15 miles was a long hike carrying our backpacks on a hot summer day. We stopped often to take breaks and drink water. Mike told me that when we cross the bridge we would be almost there. That is where the trail from Chinook campground would join with the trail we were hiking on. We walked and walked and walked some more all afternoon and hoped that the bridge would be just around the corner.
It was almost 6:00 when we finally got to the bridge and we were hungry, tired, and sweaty. We had some snacks and I was thinking that it would be really nice to jump in the river to cool off. Of course we didn't bring swim suits, but since we hadn't met a single person the whole day... but even before I finished my thought I heard some people coming up the trail. Boy scouts. I think there were about 40 kids and their leaders. I was so glad that we still had our clothes on.
It was about a 2 mile hike from the bridge to the lake, and I was really struggling to climb the steep hill. When we finally got to the lake we couldn't find a place to pitch our tent because of all the boy scouts. I think there were 3 different groups with maybe 70 boys and their leaders. I don't mind having other people around. It is better to have others there just in case of an emergency, like a bear attack.
We decided to go check out the crash site in the morning. But early in the morning I woke up with extreme dizziness. How can you be dizzy while you are still in bed? I was feeling pretty bad, and we had 15 miles to hike out to where our car was parked. So instead of hiking to the crash site, we decided it would be better for us to hike out. Later I learned from my doctor that the dizziness was caused by high altitude and the best thing to do was to descend to a lower altitude.
Our hike to Loon lake was the longest hike I did up to that time. 30 miles in two days and we didn't even see the bomber. Maybe we can go there again and take the shorter trail next time.
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