I live in Salt Lake City and I'm thinking of making a trip out there. Looks like its got plenty of nice little lakes and streams. Good fishing? any good 3-4 day loops I should know about?
thanks,
Travis

It's been a long time

I've never been there other than seeing them from a distance, but was intrigued. I hope you'll file a trip report here after the hike!

I'm leading a backpacking trip into the East Fork of the Lamoille Creek Sept. 23 thru 26. Drive there & car camp in the parking lot on the 23rd. Then walk in, set up camp & fish or climb for two days & walk out & drive home the 26th.

Check the Sierra Club's Toiyabe Chapter Outings for details & my contact info. This glacial box canyon is beautiful, with its small alpine lakes and rugged peaks.

Eric

BTW, were you thinking of hiking the nearby 37 mile Ruby Crest Trail? If so get there before the end of August to be sure ther is no snow on the mt'n. passes.

Eric

I work for the NCC and our first tour was in that area. While most of my time was focused on my work there, I did learn a little bit about the area. The "lake" is more a series of marshes connected by man made water control devices, but there is a hatchery nearby and supposed to be good trout fishing in the south lake area.

I did some dayhiking around our campsite and loved the terrain, but I never did any trails and had at max a 4 hour hike. The weather was typical high desert, but some of the junipers are very large and can make sight navigation tricky.

Another thing to keep in mind is that this is a VERY remote area, and as far as I know the closest services are in Elko a good hour or more away. There is no cell phone service. There is a water source at the ranger station. I would not recommend pulling water from the lakes or streams because of the mining nearby that uses cyanide in their processing, but I tend to be paranoid about water.

The sunsets and sunrises were excellent where I was at southeast of the Ruby Valley.

I was supposed to go up there next week (4th of July long weekend), but I wore myself out too much last week bikepacking around Big Lake in AZ. So, my Bryce Canyon area bikepacking trek moves to next week and I think I'm doing the Ruby trip early August. Have a Monday and Tuesday off and am thinking of doing Fri-Sun in the Lamoille Canyon area, then head either to SLC or Ely, NV to just trail ride on the mountain bike Mon and Tue. Need a long weekend to go there, should be 7+ hours to get there from Vegas.

I've seen what some of the others have posted and it doesn't paint a pretty picture. But, the Ruby Crest Trail and mtn chain are pretty lengthy, so it's hard to say exactly where they were. However, to me, the upper Lamoille Canyon area and lakes look more like High Sierra, not high desert. Elevation from the Lamoille Canyon/RCT TH is about 8500', the lakes are around 9500' and the peaks go into 11000'.

Download Google Earth and check the satellite images and embedded pictures.

The trek I want to do is mostly going to be cross-country. I could just drive up the canyon to the trailhead, but I'm wanting to just park on the East side and hike up the mountain to Favre or Liberty Lake. (Trails most of the way up Colonel Moore Creek, then technical scramble to the top. Camp, then make my way across the Western canyons over and up to Echo Lake. Camp, then down and down the Right Fork Canyon, over the ridge to Thomas Canyon, up the canyon and drop back down to the lakes for a final camp. Then, back down the hillside.

Where did our originator go? I lived in Elko for 15 months back in the early 70's after HS in Eureka. That's where I started bping. Never got too far in, lacked proper gear. Always wanted to go back and do the trip to Harrison Pass, but would have no way back.