Milk Lake
Scott Mclean
I promised more camping stories from the family adventures so here goes.
Another favorite campsite when I was young was Milk Lake. There used to be a lean-to type building at the lakeside with a fire pit built in. This is where Mom would work her magic over an old Coleman white gas stove. Most stoves and lanterns at the time worked off white gas and had to have the pressure pumped up by hand periodically. I can still almost smell fried potatoes, chops, and milk gravy!
Of course it could be chicken, Trout, or whatever meat and Mom would make it taste good. Of course everything tastes better in the mountains.
We had a surplus seven man raft from Sarge Hubbard’s and would pump it up to fish out of.
Dad had a 57 CJ5 Jeep and my Uncle Stan had an old Willys pickup. They would let us kids ride in the back on the mountain roads.
In the morning my Mom would let me have a cup of coffee. Of course it was about 2 parts coffee and 6 parts milk!
My older sister and I tried catching a chipmunk with a trap Uncle Gale made from a bird cage for us. Sandy actually succeeded but Dad made her let it go.
I caught a spruce grouse with a fir bough and carried it back to the lean-to. Dad said it wasn’t grouse season yet and I was told to release it as well.
I had great luck fishing when I was younger. That trip, I was pulling in trout almost as fast as Dad could bait my hook. I had already caught my limit and Dad didn’t have time to fish while keeping my hook baited. He and my Uncle paddled back to the bank and Dad convinced me it would be a great time to roast weiners or marshmallows.
He always swore the fish had quit biting when he finally got a line in the water but he did well on the evening bite! The lean-to has been gone for years but we had a lot of fun at Milk Lake.
My Uncle Dean seemed to really love the little lake if we got up there during his visits. I clearly remember him fishing from the bank or just gazing over the water to the mountains while standing on the little point. Miss you Uncle Dean! Tell Mom to save me some of those potatoes and gravy.
On a lighter note, we would stop at Milk pond.
It was full of salamanders we called water dogs. You could drop a fishing line in front of one and they would latch onto the worm without getting hooked. Tim, Terri, Steve, and I caught a bunch of them one trip. Steve and I dumped ours in the lower pasture water trough. Tim and Terri dumped theirs in a pond in their pasture.
Their Grandpa was unhappy because I understand his irrigation pump got clogged with smashed water dogs. Ewww!
We forgot about ours for a day due to getting into other mischief and did not remember till Dad told us to get the trough in the lower pasture ready. Dad had the pasture fenced into two sections so one had the grass growing back while the cows grazed in the other. We were trying to think of the best way to transfer our pets to the other trough on the way down there.
The water dogs had started as a money making scheme because the neighbors grandpa told us he’d pay us fifty cents apiece for them next time he went to Moses Lake.
It had been in the triple digits temperature wise and we smelled the disaster before we got to it.
Evidently, taking salamanders from a cold mountain lake and subjecting them to 100 degree water in a cow trough is not a good thing!
The trough was full of dead, stinking salamanders.
We had to dump it, scrub it out, refill it, and at Dad’s insistence, bury the water dogs to get rid of the smell.
It was gross and I think Dad thought it was punishment enough on its own. Worse yet was burying our dreams of forty dollars!
More later.