Mountain Lakes of Idaho Book Review

Dreams are reality in the life of a boy. My growing up was more or less one ongoing dream (or dreams) of hikes into the high mountain lakes of Idaho, of staying overnight at such wondrous places, and of attempting to catch the trout that lurked the depths or cruised the shores. The main book of such dreams was a copy of Mountain Lakes of Idaho (Idaho Fish and Game, 1973). (And now you can guess how old I am.) It was a typed-typeset book with hand-drawn maps; it contained lake names, trout species, stuff about access (trail, no trail, etc.) and in many cases what one could expect for angling. On the cover - a black and white photograph of Mount Everly from an un-named lake in the Sawtooths - though I think some printings had another photo of another lake (also in the Sawtooths?) that now slips my mind.

As my dad and I hiked to these lakes, I found out there was so much left obscure in the book. And this made for frustration, but also wonder. I mean, first of all, each of the twenty-some `areas' in the book was depicted onto the same (half-size) map. So to a boy each area might look to the roughly the same size, and these areas certainly are not. And the maps show no topography (contour) information. So, on paper, one lake looks as high as another. Nor did the maps show ruggedness, or mildness, of terrain; nor did they show open country versus brush, tangles, or downfall that would be impenetrable. (Plus, you must understand, at the time, much of the Idaho high country was only contour-mapped at the the 60-minute scale; the wonderful 7.5 minute stuff simply not available.) Some hikes were easy; some ended up far more difficult than imagined. Some lakes that promised good fishing skunked us. Some lakes were marvelous fishing. All had mystery. And I liked going to the remotest lakes, as it less mattered at such places that I was more of a novice, though fast-learning, fisherman.

Through time my dad and I, or I and buddies, or on a few (lonely) occasions I only, have made it into a lot of those lakes. It is a lot of fun now to go back though the pages of that book, and my memories, and `compare notes'. Some lakes reported to be `4 miles by good trail' have no trail at all. Some lakes sporting one species of trout produced another. We found shortcuts to some lakes. Some lakes weren't where they were supposed to be. (Remember, the maps were hand-drawn.) But we did eventually find them. And we found some other lakes that weren't on the maps.

Now I think it's all been mapped at detailed scale, and by clicking a tab (on the computer screen) you can even see equivalent-scale aerial photographs. So much of the mystery is gone. Other people have found the lakes we knew to be secret. And have taken some of the fish. There are not many more trails, but perhaps a few more travelers on them. To this day I never tire of the adventure and the beauty of going to these high mountain lakes. Yet nothing quite replaces the places these places had in my dreams, before I ever actually went to many of them.

References

Mountain Lakes of Idaho, Information Bulletin Number One, Idaho Fish and Game, 600 South Walnut, Boise, Idaho, 83707, 1973.

Backpacking as a Boy in Idaho, Jeff Filler, Associated Content.