A Seventy-Five-Year Love Affair

By John Beckwith

Photos courtesy of John Beckwith

In 1941, when I was two years old, I rode on my father’s back as we hiked the trail to the Rainbow Lakes Basin in the Trinity Mountain area, eighteen miles north of the upper end of the Anderson Ranch Dam Reservoir. Over the next seventy-five years, five generations of our family have visited this beautiful area, which contains at least sixteen lakes.

My parents, John and Mildred, spent their honeymoon in 1937 at these lakes. My father was an English professor at the University of Idaho and Mom was a former student. Before their marriage, Dad cleared trails for the U.S. Forest Service, some of them in the Trinity Lakes area.

During World War II, our family lived far away from this beautiful part of Idaho. In 1947, we moved to Boise, and in each of the next ten years, we camped for five days on the south side of Big Trinity Lake. At first, my younger sister Jani and I were the only kids but as we grew older, we each were allowed to bring our best friend. Every day we would hike over the high ridge into the Rainbow Lakes Basin. Our favorite lake was called Green Island.