This was my annual father/daughter backpacking trip, this time to the Mink Lakes basin near Bend.

The trail in started out with scrubby pines, but changed to larger pine/fir as we got closer to the lakes.

We stayed the first night at Cliff Lake, then did some day hiking to explore some of the other lakes.


We saw the shelter at Mink Lake and some other, smaller lakes in the area.


After the day hiking, we decided to hike back out to make Sunday a shorter day (since we had about a 4 hour drive home). The weather was pretty good and the mosquitoes weren’t too bad, as long as you kept moving. If you sat down, they pounced pretty quickly.

We spent most of our evenings in the tent to escape them. All in all, a very nice long weekend backpack trip with my daughter.