Fish Lake

Jacqueline and I had been planning to go to Fish Lake for about 6 years, so we figured it was finally time. We arranged it so that we could meet up with Jacqueline's brother Paul who could come down from Salt Lake with his dog Flynn. Paul was going to meet us later, so Jacqueline, Zyla, and I made the 3 plus hour drive up to Fish Lake. It was a pretty drive and nice to go to some new country. We arrived at the lake in the early afternoon. We took a look around and saw the facilities before cruising the campground to find our perfect site.

We were surprised at just how many sites were available because the closer you are to Zion, the less likely you are to find a campsite. We picked one near the top of the hill with an excellent view of the lake. We decided to use the afternoon to get a hike in. Our trail of choice was Doctor Creek. It started out fairly flat going through some meadows. The flatness changed to some uphill. Jacqueline did great despite carrying a baby. Zyla was happily tucked away in the backpack. There were a few other people on the hike, but it was relatively quiet. The trail took us up, up, up through the aspens until finally popping out in a nice open meadow. At this point, the trail vanished but this was probably enough for the three of us anyway. We had a relatively easy hike back, so we took our time enjoying a break in the meadow talking to some women that joined us there. We hiked on back to the car and then met up with Paul at the campsite. He was in a great mood as usual. Zyla was both happy and nervous to see Flynn there.
 We had a good spot to have a dog because we were nowhere near any other groups, so Flynn could bark to his heart's content. We put Zyla to bed, which luckily, she never minds going to bed by herself in the tent. We stayed up playing Catan and enjoying each other's company. The next day we were up early in the morning. It was nice and chilly, so we enjoyed some breakfast in our poofy jackets. Our plan for the day was to go for a hike. I had a good map, so we chose a loop that would take us on the Crater-Ivie Trail. It was supposed to be 6 miles roundtrip. Jacqueline said that she was up for a big hike like that, so we went for it.

Flynn was so happy running around off his leash, that I felt so bad to have to ask Paul to put Flynn back on his leash. It is one of my pet peeves to be out hiking and have a dog come running up to me off leash. I could see that Paul did not agree with my personal preferences, but he obliged. We started out charging up a hill once again. When we topped out, we briefly talked about turning around, but Jacqueline said we could keep going. The trail quickly dropped down into a dryish lake bed. We walk around to the inlet of the lake and uphill through a meadow until we were back in the trees. We had a few worries as Flynn was getting a bit worn out while the dark thunderclouds warned of possible rain or lightning.
 We continued moving, though and soon we were coming down a trail with lots of loose rock. Jacqueline was not thrilled about this with a baby in her belly, but we made it down and were soon rewarded with an excellent view of the lake. Fish Lake was massive covering a huge area. We were now in a meadow which we would take back all the way to the car to complete the loop. We let Zyla walk the last fifteen minutes and she was happy to do so. She did so good in the backpack all day, so it was nice to get her out and let her walk. We drove on back to the campsite where we were able to hang out for the evening once again. Paul brought his sailboat to go sailing on the lake, but the winds were too strong in the morning, so we went out to breakfast instead. Then we parted ways having a fun weekend of hiking and hanging out.