The original plan was to place this cache nine months ago when
myself, CJJIT and a mountain dog headed into the Gifford valley for
the first time but instead only made it up to the outlet of the
lower lake before hitting our turnaround time. This return trip has
been planned since that day and being dogless and having scouted
much of the route we made better time allowing us to push on
through with the remainder of the trip up to Russian Butte,
Revolution Peak, The Cabin and on out past Granite Lakes.
Surprisingly, after spending six hours bushwhacking and
scrambling up the Gifford Valley we came upon the lake to not only
see someone fishing on the far shore but also two more people
floating and fishing in two separate rafts! The two rafters made
their way over and we traded ‘didn’t expect to see
anyone here stories’ and learned that they had spent the
night on the ridge to the south and dropped down via an old logging
road and slight boot track trail.
The Route
The easy way is faster and easier but longer. The hard way is
shorter and much more adventurous but takes more time and is
downright brutal in places.
The easy way: start at
SRMF: Granite Creek Access and find your way up and over the
south ridge on old logging roads then find the boot track or
bushwhack down to the lake. The rafters indicated they made the
ridge in four hours and the lake in less then one from their
ridgeline campsite.
The hard way: start at the same spot and head up the Gifford
Valley passing
Halfway to Gifford Lakes, The Hard Way. We made it by this
route in just over six hours today though our first trip to the
lower lake took over eight hours.
The Cache
An ammo can hidden not far from the shoreline in a large
cubbyhole. It is not covered by any camo and can be seen quite
easily from certain angles