Wednesday, July 20, 2011

July 16, 2011

Start: 1063
End: 1078

David wasn't able to eat  much last night and his legs were feeling pretty heavy, so he made a contingency plan to get picked up at Blue Lakes Road, 4 miles up the trail, rather than continue to Carson Pass per the original plan if he wasn't feeling up to it.  It's not an easy thing to jump right into hiking 13+ miles a day, particularly for multiple days in a row.

When we got to Blue Lakes Road, David reevaluated how he was feeling and decided that there wasn't enough time for him to make it Carson Pass.  If we had another day everything would have worked out, but the timeline was already set and we needed to get to Carson Pass, as did David so he could meet up with the rest of the family and head to Squaw Valley the following day. Once we parted ways with David, we headed up past the Nipple above Blue Lakes, and continued on toward Hwy 88.

The Nipple

Paintbrush



Upper and Lower Blue Lakes from our lunch location
There was more snow than yesterday, but we still also saw our fair share of wildflowers as we made our way along the trail, around Elephant's Back.


Elephant's Back


Mule's Ear


Paintbrush
We arrived at Carson Pass right at 4pm and had just sat down when David and Janet showed up bearing gifts of coconut macaroons, rocky road ice cream, Gatorade, and  Newcastle Brown Ale! They also offered us a warm place to sleep at Silver Lake just down the road, where they were spending the night courtesy of David's mom (my aunt) Sally.  We gladly accepted the offer and hung out at the pass with some other hikers while David and Janet drove back to Ebbetts Pass to retrieve David's car.

At Silver Lake we met up with Sally, as well as David and Janet's two daughters Lauren (age 3) and Sarah (age 1). We had a little bit of story time, along with showers, followed by David treating all of us to dinner at the restaurant at Kit Carson's Lodge, which was amazing! Following dinner we went back and ate some brownies and macaroons to finish off the night, before falling asleep with full bellies in a warm cabin overlooking the lake.  What an amazing day and great trail magic!

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