Backpacking Adventure - Day 2

The next morning, while packing up camp, I looked up to see a marmot/woodchuck/rodent thingy observing us.

"Umm, what is that???" The tone of my voice must have made Patrick think it was something pretty serious because he whipped around to find what I was talking about.

"Oh, I don't know. He's cute."
"Cute? He looks big enough to attack and eat me!"
"He's all fluff."
"Don't animals fluff up when they feel threatened and are preparing to attack?"

Not only was he "cute," he was a bold little sucker! I had to chase him from our camp on multiple occasions. At one point, I turned my back on him for a second to zip up my pack and I turned back around to find him within 3 feet of me. Not cool, little marmot thingy, not cool.

Once packed, we left our campsite and furry neighbor behind as we started up the switchbacks that would take us to the summit. The trail was extremely steep and I was already sore from the previous days ascent. By the degree of steepness of the trail, you never would have guessed we had gone uphill for 4 out of 5 miles the day before. It felt as if we were gaining all 3000' in these last 2 miles to the summit.

Back and forth, back and forth up the mountainside. Up here, the trees were more sparse and the giant redwoods had given way to just regular sized trees. Occasionally, we had to find our way around or over trees that had fallen across the trail and the trail was so littered with tree debris it made the going extremely slow. Small, round pinecones were so abundant on the trail it was like walking on marbles. We had to be careful not to fall or twist an ankle. It was evident they hadn't been up to clear the trail for the season yet.

Finally, it seemed the trail was leveling off some. We came to a fairly large patch of snow we had to cross. "Hmm. The trail looks like it goes that way but I see footprints that are going that way," I say, pointing in two different directions. As I look closer at the footprints I realize those aren't footprints but giant bear paw prints. Quickly, we scan the area for a bear. Nothing, but that doesn't mean much. "Ok, let's get out of here!" Straight out of a cartoon (I think there was a trail of dust I left in my wake), I shot up the trail. Patrick couldn't get over how fast I took off, after all we'd being going up the mountain for over an hour and we were exhausted. Just goes to show what your body's really capable of!

Soon afterwards, we came out of the trees, rock wall on one side of us and deep canyon on the other. On the other side of the canyon, the mountains rose up again, no trees but giant snowfields covering them instead. We paused briefly to evaulate the map and estimate how far we were from the summit. While looking over the map, we both noticed a weird noise coming from down in the canyon. "It sounds like an emu (thanks to Kristin's Redland neighbors, I know what an emu sounds like)." But, obviously, it wasn't an emu. We had no idea what it was, but all I could keep thinking was "Do bears make a warning noise???" Regardless, we kept moving up the mountain. We had no tree cover any longer and the sun was out in full force. We had gone from killer pinecones underfoot to loose rocks that brought to mind visions of stumbling and plummeting to our death.

Just as all morale was dying rapidly, we came to a gorgeous waterfall that ran wide and strong and flooded our path. Now, this was worth the climb. We stood in the spray of the waterfall, navigating the trail in our minds. Soon, we were precariously stepping from rock to rock, not sure if we would make it without tumbling into the flow of water below.

After the waterfall we continued to climb the mountain for another 30 minutes. It felt much longer! Patrick had to walk in front so I couldn't see how much further it was to the top. Another river crossing and we were there. We had made it to Summit Lake! It had taken us 2 1/2 hours to go 2 miles, but we had made it!

We set our packs on some rocks and plopped down to rest in the sun. The lake was surrounded by mountains, giant snowfields everywhere. It was beautiful and peaceful. We saw fish jumping in the lake and a tiny garter snake, while we sat relaxing. We climbed some nearby rocks and laid in the sun. We realized we better decide the game plan for the rest of the day. We decided we would look for a good place to camp, but if we couldn't find a spot we may just head back down the mountain and see how far we could get down the trail.

We went to investigate a spot we had seen earlier that was clear of snow and would work for our tent. However, by the time we went to investigate, the cleared area had been flooded by snow runoff. So, we were headed back down the mountain and we had carried all our gear these last 2 miles for no reason. But, hey, we were in it for the adventure. Only it was starting to feel more like torture.

The last installment of our adventure soon to come but here are some more pictures for now:

Our furry neighbor. Tell me that thing's not creepy!

Great view while heading up the trail.

Checking the map. How much further?!?

The waterfall that flooded the trail. It was so much more beautiful than this shows.

Summit Lake

We made it!!!