The adventures of M&M

Missy and I have an odd friendship. It started in the summer of 2012 when I walked off the cook line twice in a month that happened to be on her shifts. She doesn’t let me forgot it to this day. Missy is one of the coolest people I’ve had the pleasure of working with and being friends with. When I walked off the cook’s line and severed a decent time in the dish pit she took me under her wing. Luckily for me the park was on fire and they needed help cooking for the firefighters. As being a former firefighter I offered my services and was accepted back to cooking. Regardless that I only cooked for a couple hours and went back to the dish pit, I still learned a lot. Also, when you cook for active firefighters in the forest, you cook the food and put them in five gallon buckets. The buckets are sealed, put into insulated boxes, taped and then shipped off to them. If they’re far from the road, the boxes are dropped by helicopter. By the end of their food agreement they told us that it was the best food they’ve had fighting fires. That made all of our days.

                Missy and I started off really easy, just getting into the season we didn’t want to strain ourselves or put us in harm’s way. The first day we went out we hiked Wraith Falls and a small portion of Lava Creek Trail along with Undine Falls. Maybe a mile or two. The next day we hiked the whole part of Lava Creek. We drove the car to Lava Creek and started the hike. Fifteen minutes into the hike gave us a gorgeous view of the Lava Creek Canyon. To or left was Undine Falls and ahead of us was three miles of canyon with a view of Mammoth Hot Springs in the far distance with Sepulcher Mountain looking over it. While looking at the falls we were spooked by our small spirit animal the marmot. We didn’t know this then, but every hike we were to do together, the marmot would watch over us.

                One hour into the hike we made it out of the canyon and were on the North side of the river upon a hill with no shade coverage. To the North of us started the edge was the beginning of a steep climb to hike Mount Everts.  Within the hour we had small took but mainly took the scenery in. There were talks about her making Gin out of berries illegally in her dorm room and having someone else take the first taste test to make sure it wasn’t going to make us blind by drinking it. Talking about the repercussion of a possible explosion, the rangers finding out and the possibility of HR finding out about it, we decided to pass on the money making idea of Yellowstone Gin. During the little rest an eagle screeched above us as it flew circles in the sky. It was too far up to get a picture and after taking a couple steps we had lost it in the clear blue sky.

                Two hours into the hike we came across a small bridge that went over the rushing muddy spring water. I made the small suspension bridge wobble and Missy was not too happy with it. The wind was going with the flow of water and made for a nice cool place to take a small little stop and let it soak in. After the bridge was an intersection and we were not sure which way to go. I made the choice of going right and defended the reason with it would be less of a climb. It was a climb no matter what. We came up to a small opening where the there was a couple bone piles. We’re not sure how old they were but made us feel uneasy; it was a feeding ground. Instead of following the path, we followed a tale of an eagles nest and stayed close to the waters in search. We climbed up on a rock formation that was about 50 feet high. There was a view of the river that we had been hiking along for two hours with sights of where we drove the car to get to the Lava Creek trail head. On top of the rock formation was a small tree that stood 10 or 15 feet tall and I felt that it was out of place, but that’s most of Yellowstone in my eyes. The more that something is out of place, the more you know you’re in the park.

                We hiked down the formation and just stared up at to where the trail was taking us. I thought that if once we get up that monstrous hill, we’ll be home free. After a good ten minute hike up the hill, there was another intersection and hill.  This hill made the previous hill seem like a speed bump. Despite the looks and our energy it had to be done. At last the hill came to an end and leveled out. We hiked to the road in about five minutes and thought to ourselves, “we should have parked the other car here…” It was about a half mile more to our friend’s car that we were borrowing. The trail brought us to the road that takes us down to Gardiner. The half mile of road changes 100-300 feet in elevation, or at least that’s what it seemed to us. We walked the road for a bit before deciding to cut through the Mammoth Camp Grounds. Instead of walking the road with a 6% grade, we hiked/climbed a hill that was at a 50 degree angle or more. Once we reached the top we walked the road that was still going uphill but not terribly too much…Unless you just hiked 5 miles, then the five foot incline in 50 feet seemed like it was a ten foot incline in five feet. We passed the court house and made it to the parking lot. Our friend had bought a new car and now we were walking around the packed parking lot for a Honda with a superman and batman car covers on the front seat. We missed it the first time walking around but finally found it. I drove Missy to her truck, “Estaban” and almost called it a day but saw my old roommate Chris. I hopped in the old Le Baron and went for a ride with Chris where we drove out to Roosevelt and back and continued to chat about the small break that we each took. Chris was only passing through for a short time and was headed out to Glacier for his summer job.

                A month went by before we had our next great adventure of hiking to the great Osprey Falls. The journey started off with a ride to the Bunsen Peak parking lot.  We had a nice little drive passing the Hoodoos, the Golden Gate Bridge and Rustic Falls. To the West of the parking lot is beautiful mountainous scenery with mountain tops far as the eye can see.  The trail to the falls is an old road that used to be drivable back in the day but is now use for NPS vehicles. The road is more of a straight path for three miles with dirt where the tires would run across. The beginning of the trail is beauty of trees and clouds in the sky but after minutes of walking the road in the distance turns to gold. Yellow wildflowers were everywhere from the angel we saw it from but upon approaching the flowers they were scattered for a distance. The trail for the first 20 minutes was covered in six different flower types, still unknown today, but the butterflies and dragonflies seemed to enjoy them.

                A mile or so down the road the trees disappeared and the plains opened up. To the South of the road the plains went for forty feet and dropped into a canyon. I am not sure to as how wide the canyon is or where the water came from, but on the South side of the canyon were many trees lying down as if a tornado had hit years ago. I am once again uninformed on the surrounding of a hike but I assume that the dead trees may have been part of the 88’ fires. I do know that the North side of Bunsen peak was part of the fires so my educated guess of the canyon trees being part of the fire I feel is accurate, (If I was leading a group of tourists, it would sound great). The trees started to spring up a bit and we were once again on the road with shrubs around us.

                The trees were about 15 feet high to my guess. As we continued walking down we saw a bird run across the road. To our luck it was a Grouse. We acted like ninjas and hiked on the opposite side of the road in hopes to get a peak of the feller. I managed to snap a couple pictures of the bird in its wooded habitat. It moved along with us for five or ten feet and made sure we kept going on our way. The first time I experience this bird in the wild was the summer of 2012. I went hiking with two buddies of mine on the trail of Beaver Ponds. We were in heavy wooded area when out of nowhere a grouse made its noise. I don’t recall what it sounds like but I do know that I jumped 10 feet in the air yelling and asking the other two what the heck that was.

                We finally came to the end of the road after 90 minutes. There was a sign stating that bikes were no long allowed on the trail and a narrow path leaded downwards with a curve to the right. A little further down this path led us to an amazing view looking South of the Canyon. Not getting too close to the ledge I looked down and had vertigo for a moment. After looking to the other side of the canyon and looking I down, I felt that it was a lot further down than the hiking boot said. 800 feet is a lot further down when your hiking than when your 80 stories up in sky scraper that has an elevator. We left the outlook and continued the path which remained fairly flat and arrived to another outlook the pointed East instead of South. Like before, I kept my distance from the ledge and snapped some photos. At that time a chipmunk was running on the ledge and I tried to follow the little bastard to get a shot of him for a point of view for the landscape shot.

                Five minutes of walking we found ourselves the first switchback and the fun had started. The first couple of switchbacks were short didn’t have much of decline to them; going down is better than going up. A couple of switch backs down we found some new flowers along with two caterpillar nests that just looked nasty. We looked at the nests up close and could see little worm thingys moving around. It made us both cringe like a four year old.

                Halfway down the switchbacks was a downed tree. The tree was massive in size and took out some other trees creating a rather big obstruction. The trees were rather obnoxious for a hiker. It was an odd climb for us but we got over the mess and continued down the way. We passed a tourist who was hiking by himself and was out of water. As we passed we offered some water but he declined and continued towards the sounds of rushing water. The last switch back ended with a curve around a point and curved back around like a backwards “C”. There was a steep decline on the East side of the path with a tree in the middle. The moister from the falls I assumed help the greenery on the rocks and the tree in the little nook. It just looked pretty and so surreal.

                At last the falls grew louder and louder and we turned the corner and could feel mist spraying on us as the water fell down smacking into the rocks below. I climbed up to the right of the pathway to take some pictures and get out of the mist and Missy continued up the pathway around another pointed corner of the mountain side. After some pictures I followed and surpassed Missy and her warning that it was really muddy up there. I climbed up to a tree and grabbed the unburied roots to get on top of the little mound. I snapped some pictures; put the camera lens back on and back into the pack securing the Velcro hold. I moved five feet to another tree but the bag was caught on a root and tipped the camera bag upside down unleashing the camera to a tumbling doom.

                The camera slid in slow motion down a muddy side where the strap went over a rock where I hoped that it would catch it from the doom that waited for it. Unfortunately for the camera, the strap went right over the rock and followed the metal cube off the ledge where I lost sight of it for a quick moment. It jumped back into my view where it tried to do some front flips for style points and stuck the landing on the grass. To ease the pain the camera decided to roll with the fall and stick the landing on top of some rocks which were already home to water and mist.

                During this time I had screamed in a very high pitched voice as if I just saw my legs cut off by a surprise attack from a hoard of zombie clowns. I was in a shock and awe. Missy ran over screaming if everything was alright. Once I caught my breath I explained in a rather angry voice about the horrible incident that the camera went through.

                “My camera [beep] fell down the [beep] hill into the [beep] rocks where the [beep] water and mist are!”-MacKeag Resh 6/10/2013

                I was not happy. I knew I had to go down there. I know other people had but I was in too much emotional pain to do it in a safe manner. I had my paracord bracelet on and broke it off for the semi steep climb. At that time if felt like a very steep and long fall. Missy still makes fun of me for it but I used a 12 foot rope to go 14 feet. In my defense, it was muddy and slippery. None the less I went by the rocks to retrieve the camera and found it in one piece. I turned the camera on and an emotional burden was lifted. I screamed in joy and started taking pictures of the falls from below. It was great. No breaks or scratches in the lens; The LCD screen had a small crack on the bottom left of the screen. It still worked. It still took photos. The memory was still there. I couldn’t have been happier at that time. I climbed up the slippery slope without the rope and had a cigarette.

We started counting the number of switchbacks on the hike up. Switchbacks one through four were okay. Number five was the worst one. Number six took number fives place by a mile. I led the hike on six and there was a point where I thought I saw the ending to it but it was a mirage. It didn’t curve up and around, it just curved and then went up and curved back. I did not recall this switchback going downhill at all. After the curve I could see the end of the switchback and stopped for a moment. The switchback continued to go flat instead and curved another time while inclining. Number six was by far the worst one. We made it to the last switchback and saw the overlook and knew we had reached the end. Trying to catch my breath, Missy and myself spotted two marmots sunbathing on some dead trees. The spirit animal has graced us with his presence again. We snapped some photos and started to continue our journey back. Instead of taking the path I suggested that we hike strait towards Bunsen and Peak and we would eventually hit the road again and just take a shorter route. Success. We found the road and walked back to the car. We hit the parking lot in about an hour and headed back to Mammoth for a good rest. Upon arriving back to the dorm I saw Kevin and told him about the photos I took at Osprey and the camera experience. I invited him along for tomorrow’s hike of Bunsen Peak and he said he was a slow hiker. I explained that we weren’t the quickest and we like to stop and take photos so I convinced him to join us.

                The next day we met in the EDR and had lunch. Afterwards we met outside Juniper and Kevin drove us up the hill. This would be the second time I have climbed Bunsen and the first time for the other two. Right after we passed the trail head were some nice photo ops for some flowers. Afterwards we continued the trail at a slight decline. The trail starts off North and heads east towards Bunsen. There is a small area where the trail overlooks the Golden Gate Canyon and bridge. Unlike the famous Golden Gate Bridge the bridge in Yellowstone is not a suspension bridge. In the late 1800’s the bridge was wooden and barely had room for one Carriage. With many accidents of wagons falling off and such, they built a new cement bridge in 1900. Golden Gate got the name from the colors of the rock and not from the mineral.

                We continued are conquest up the mountain side. Bunsen starts of rather flat and took us about an hour to get to the tough switchbacks. Before the switchbacks, the trail heads south and wraps back around heading north. After the bend is a very big rock that sits beneath a tree. The first time I hiked the trail I rested here and we did the same on this trip.  After five minutes of rest and catching my breath, we continued the hike and made it to the first switchback. The first switchback and every odd one after that has a nice view looking towards the north with Mammoth in the distance with Gardiner behind that and the Absaroka Mountain Range further behind that. Each switchback looking further down then the next. After those views were over we continued up the steeper and steeper switchbacks which also seemed to get shorter but higher up. The last half of the switchback trails was covered in what seemed to be Shale Rock.

                We made it through the steep switchbacks and arrived at the top of the mountain side. We passed a family who said that it was impossible to get to the top but we ignored them and continued. At this point last year there was a large snow cap but it had a somewhat gradual grade to it. This time around the snowcap was melting and rather steep so we went around the slippery barricade and found a new way.

                The trail was still covered with Shale like rock and became a little bit tricky on getting up to the peak but we managed to conquer the terrain rejoice at the top for water and dehydrated fruit. We also snapped photos as usual and sat around for a while taking it in. The forecast from the top looked like rain but turned out to be overcast. I asked if they wanted to go down the same way or venture into new territory for all of us and go down the backside. None of us had to work that night so we went down the South side.

                As we made it over the third peak a tree stood out like any other day. The angle of the tree was so bizarre that if the wind blew you over the tree would almost look normal. Kevin took a couple pictures of me leaning on the tree and pretending to hold it up. The backside of Bunsen had its ups and downs; literally. The trail went inclined and declined about four times before it made up its mind on decided to go down. Over every hill was a sad view of downed trees from the fire in 88’. The neat thing about Lodgepole Pines is that they naturally reseed the ground during a fire. Their seed is so compacted that only a high temp flame will open the shell causing the seeds to burst out in any direction replanting them for years to come. As we walked up and down we noticed that the trees were going in small clumps due to the bursting of the seed. Not only were there dead trees lying all over the place but there were a few here and there that were standing upright like bare telephone poles.

                On the way down we found some more bright yellow wildflowers. We found a group right before I was about to use Mother Nature and decided to find a different location for that. Between two switchbacks on the hillside covered in big yellow flowers. While making our way down we had our spirit animal give us a greeting. Before we could get our cameras back out we had to find the little guy. I didn’t get a picture but I believe Kevin did.

                The trail on the backside of Bunsen slowly meets up with that of Osprey. The trails are about 100 yards apart when you finally reach the bottom of the mountain but the trails don’t meet up for about a mile or so. While walking on the Bunsen trail we found ourselves looking for the trail. It seems so many people decided to take the road more traveled that the trail for the backside of Bunsen was an old wives tale. I’m sure while I was leading the group I found and followed a couple animal trails. No matter what way we would have gone we would have arrived at the same place roughly at the same time.

                We came to the road and joked around about leaving items at the top or not wanting to go down this way and we should just turn around now. I thought the photos were done for the day but some butterflies and dragonflies made me think twice. I managed to snap a couple photos before they flew out of view.

                Going down the back side of Bunsen Peak was worth it. The views, the terrain and the overall beauty was amazing. The natural outlooks through the break of trees was something to see. In my opinion the natural views that you find are earned and are more inspiring than those that are on a road and are human made because it took self-achievement to gain access to those views. The first time I hiked Bunsen and made it to the top; I was in shock. To have hiked down the backside that same day would have been amazing but too much to take in at the same time. After doing the backside, I feel like there is no other way to hike Bunsen without doing the loop unless time is of the essence.

                Another adventure was a trip to the suspension bridge over Hell Roaring Creek. There are multiple ways of getting to the bridge: The first way I did it last summer was the Hell Roaring Creek Trail, but this time we went through Nancy’s hole. We parked Estaban by the employee housing at Roosevelt Lodge and stopped in to see our friend Doug. I hooked us up at the “Cook Out” and said to show up around 4ish.

                The beginning of the trail is a dirt/dusty road for horses and stagecoaches. On the way to the Cook Out, also known as Nancy’s Hole, we had a situation with a bison. He was hogging the right side of the road so we had to navigate to the left a bit over a rough hill. We continued on and made it to Nancy’s Hole without a problem.

                We walked through some tall grass and over a couple creeks into a wooded area. We got some water on our faces from the creek but left in a hurry due to the mosquitos that were feed of the same water. Missy’s friend Dan accompanied us on the adventure and took the lead. We were in bear territory and Dan’s way of being bear aware was to simply yell, “HEY BEAR!” That would happen every 10 minutes or so.

                We crossed paths with a lady who said she saw a young bear ten minutes out but some other hikers came by and scared it away. The three of us made it to what I think was Hell Roaring Canyon. We were greeted by a nice waterfall that went over and through some large boulders. The path became narrow and declined quickly to a river crossing. This lovely river crossing had some stones and logs to step on in case you didn’t want to get wet but they weren’t the most trustworthy looking steps I’ve seen. I grabbed a stick and used it as balance as I dashed from one to another.

                The path lead up a hill covered in flowers that soon came to an intersection of the Hell Roaring Creek trail. Ten minutes up and down the rocky path and we came to the suspension bridge. We ate some fruit, had a smoke, took in the view and dropped the cores of the fruit into the rushing waters of the creek. As we were about to leave some elder tourist decided to make the venture down and were huffing and puffing as I passed by. On the East side of the bridge the path goes to the right a little and opens up into an outlook where you can see the river bend around the corner and drop down some feet before repeating itself numerous times.

                Concerned about time we made a speedy hike back to Nancy’s Hole. Dan took off like a wild man and we lost sight of him. About a half hour into the hike we passed a group of hikers. We asked if they saw a hippie looking guy pass them and they said he was jogging by them about 20 minutes ago. Missy and I slowed our pace down and took in the scenery that we had missed before. By the time we got out of the canyon and back into the plains we spotted Dan a quarter of a mile away. We picked the pace up and tried to wave him over to the Cook Out. I finally screamed his name loud enough and flagged him down to turn around.

                Our friend Doug wasn’t working but the cooks got the message. We were a little early so Missy helped set up the cook out a little bit since she used to work this area a few years ago. Our lovely dinner was a New York Strip with Baked Beans and Coleslaw. The baked beans were a big thing at the cook out. They’re famously known to people that have worked in the park for numerous seasons as “Rosie Beans”. They were definitely delicious. While eating a coyote was spotted just exiting the woods staying close to the mountain side far from the cook out. I managed to capture a blurry picture but with some of the cooks around knowing the area, the coyote had a really bad case of mange and looked rather thin in the blurred picture.

                On our way back on the dirt road we were very close to the end when I almost stepped on a small bird. There were two black and yellow birds that were not shy and almost posed for me as I took their pictures. One was skinny and barely bent the stem on a dandelion where the other was fat and would have broken the stem if he were to jump onto it. I snapped some photos for a while and then I had to jog to the other two who just wanted to get back to Estaban.

                The final trip with Missy was also with my friend Sam. Sam worked in the kitchen and got to know Missy very well. This was the first hike for Sam and Missy and my last hike with both of them, not knowing at the time. Missy and I had a couple more hikes planned but I played things safe towards the middle and end of season. Our original plan was to hike Union Falls but I was not ready for that hike so I convinced the two to do Heart Lake. Sam had just bought a fly fishing rod and was eager to use it. He researched the lake and found that it was one of the best spots for fishing. I was excited to go swimming but as we made our campground reservation we were informed about the leeches. So with that in mind, I stayed out of the water. We had plans to borrow a camping stove from our friend and Missy was in charge of that. I ran to the store to get a spare gas tank for the store and Sam was in charge of getting the water filter from another friend. The plan was to meet at six in the morning in the EDR, eat and leave.

                Sam and I woke up and went to the EDR where we ate without Missy. As we were about to finish eating Missy came in and scarfed down some food and said she would be ready in ten. She also failed at getting the stove from our friend so I went over to the cabin where he sleeps and knocked on the door. I waited for five or ten minutes with no result. I walked over to Estaban and waited with Sam. Twenty minutes went by and still nothing. We walked up to her room and she was packing and said she would be down in five. It was 8 o’clock and we were in the truck. I mentioned the failure of the one job Missy had and we ended up grabbing a steel can from the recycling bin in the kitchen. We each had a couple sack lunches from the EDR that would come in handy.

                We reached Hayden Valley at 9:30 where we encountered a small bison jam. The ride was filled with great tunes from the phone of Missy. Estaban didn’t have a cassette player or a cd player. Despite the lack of audio the ride was fun and enjoyable and we finally reached the trail head for Heart Lake at 10:30. Once we were parked we got out and did one last pit stop before the great hike.

                All three of us looked at the map on the trail head which looked more intimidating than that of the book’s map. I lead the hike for most of the way there. The trail started off in a dense forest and made its way through parts of the 88’ fire which left us open to the sun. The trail was relatively flat for half of the hike. We made our way through the forest which had a couple open plains running through it before coming to the top of a large hill where Mount Sheridan started to appear.

                As we moved across the hill top, our eye(s) could see as far as they could see. The blue water from Heart Lake reflected the sun from six miles away and the north side of Mount Sheridan looked down at us. From here I realized that we had to go around the mountain and that it was going to be a little more work than I had thought. Walking down the hill were some hot springs that reminded me of the Flintstones, enough to the point where I said to the other two, “This reminds me of Bedrock”. From this point on down to the lake we were going to see different types of springs and pools that none of us had known about when we briefly researched the hike.

                There were a couple of small creeks that we had to step over (literally) and we poked fun at having to forge them and not sure if we might lose a member of our party due to the strong currents they were producing. After the hill and entering Bedrock the shade had disappeared for 99% of the hike. We passed an area with a little shade and a nice log to sit on but figured that we’ll just eat at the beach. We were about ten minutes from landing on the beach before we were spooked by an elk. It was the first wildlife animal with any weight to it that we saw in the six hours of hiking. For us the trail was more about the surrounding beauty than a hunt for wildlife.

                After lunch we had another mile to go to our campsite. Park employees get free campsites but can only reserve them one day before their exploration. Unfortunately we didn’t get the first five sites that were close to the northeast side of the lake where the trail junctions off into a loop around the lake. We hiked for another mile following the northwest shore line before taking the path through tall buggy grass. Walking near the shore line on the trail was like walking on a fresh cow pie. Every gnat, mosquito and every type of fly were hovering over the trail. I felt like I was going to rob a bank with my shirt covering my face for so long.

                The trail went further from the lake and led us up hill. At this point I was thinking that we passed the camp site or we were going to die trying to get there. The sounds of water became louder and louder and we had found ourselves near a river. The river source came off of Mount Sheridan and in the distance we could see a couple waterfalls. The trail led us to the left and followed the river. Sam took over and led us through the wet and muddy trail. The river swooped down the hill as did our trail and lead us straight to our campsite.

                It was a rather large and open campsite with a nice fire pit with benches around for comfy outdoor seating. Before setting up camp we followed the river down to the lake which was only 30 feet away. The river’s water gave life to some beautiful wildflowers, tall grass and some more bugs. We went back to the site and set up the gear. I was rooming with Sam in his tent and Missy set up her hammock. I just crashed. The inside of my thighs were roughed up and rather uncomfortable that lead to me being in a sore and pissy mood. After things were set up and the bags were hung from a tree, Sam and Missy said they were going to hike Mount Sheridan. I waved them off and took a nap. My idea of hiking and camping in one trip is about ten miles a day. If it’s more than that, then it can’t be two separate hikes.

                None the less I got a fire going while the two were off to the top of the world. I watched over the waters and had some Zen moments. Afterwards I went around the campsite looking for more wood that would last us the night. The sun was falling down beyond the horizon of the Mountain and I could only hope for the better of the two. I lowered the bags and grabbed the steel can, filled it with water and tried to get it boiling before the other two would arrive. For some reason I could not get the water to boil at first.

                Missy brought along two dinner packages: Pasta and Cheese and a Beef Stew. For being out of a bag and just having to heat up, they weren’t so bad. I can say I would rather eat this than a couple of the EDR meals that I have had to force down my throat and I know a couple others that would agree. We stayed up for quite some time but with the other two having hiked an extra five or six miles more than myself; they went to bed rather early. Sam and I went down by the lake to try and figure out his SLR camera for some night shots but we were unsuccessful. I stayed up a little later watch the fire and looking at the stars before the campfire had gone to bed.

                Sam and Missy both brought a sleeping bag and I brought a blanket and pillow. The plan was to get a light tent and sleeping bag from the recreational office but they were closed on Sundays and I was shit out of luck. Despite waking up a couple times to the sound and touch of my own teeth chattering it was a peaceful night with no bears or carnivorous animals looking for food. I woke up first and the other two wanted to sleep the day away.

                I wanted to wake up early that morning for some sunrise pictures but failed in making it out of bed. I made a fire and got the water to boil and asked Missy if she wanted her bagged breakfast warmed up but she insisted on sleeping. I let the fire go and grabbed Sam’s fly fishing rod and headed to the lake. It was cold with the fresh breeze coming off the lake but I wanted to try and catch a fresh breakfast. I casted the line several times ten feet off the shore but had no luck in a catch. After failing many more times I went back to the camp site and woke the other two up but they kept on sleeping the day away. It came to the point where I had suggested that I would meet them at the vehicle and hike alone. Knowing that it is a bad idea to hike alone, they both woke up and packed up the site. We grabbed all the garbage and straightened the site out to where it looked better than before as all campers should do.

                A half mile of hiking and we ran into the lone ranger who looks out after the lake. He asked us about our night and he knew what site we were coming from. He then proceeded to ask for our reservation papers and let us continue back to where we were from. We had followed the ranger all the way back to the trail head where he pointed out a carcass ¼ mile away and warned us of the possibility of bears. We shrugged it off and continued back.

Calling out for bears and walking forever we made it to the base of the mountain before the switchbacks would start. I waited for Sam and Missy to catch up before the big hike up. I lead the way for a short time before the in shape Sam took the lead. I was ahead of Missy but not by much which is one reason we were great hiking buddies. It took us roughly ten minutes to get to the end of hell and rest on a log alongside of Sam who was munching down on some Oreos. After catching our breath we ate some food as we stared into our past soaking up the mental image of the mountain line, Heart Lake and Sheridan on our right. From there the hike seemed to be an eternity to get to the car. The heat, the lack of energy and the empty stomach made me somewhat delirious and very impatient. With 30 minutes left before we would see the car I had twisted my ankle which did not improve the situation. But with the support of Sam and Missy saying five more minutes 15 times I eventually got through it.

                Sam and I had planned to sleep in the back of Estaban and let the wind from the truck cool us off but there was change in weather that made us cram in cab. I offered to drive back since I didn’t hike as much but Missy declined. We made it back to Canyon and took Dunraven Pass to Mammoth. After the climb down Mount Washburn started a traffic jam. We waited long enough for most people to turn their car off and wait silently while the road construction workers did their thing. Missy dropped us off right by the outside stairs to the top floor of Juniper. Sam and I waved goodbye and looked up to our one last goal for the day; to climb these stairs. With sore leg muscles and a sprained ankle, I fought through the pain, exhaustion, and hunger and ran up half the stairs before taking it step by step grabbing on to each rail to pull myself to the next step. As I dropped my stuff in our room I grabbed my towel and shampoo and went back down some stairs and took a nice shower before a hard earned meal in the shitty EDR. I was really hoping for steak that night but it was subpar and to the point where Sam just napped the dinner period away.