12 July: Today was the big day of the hike. we had hiked slow and low miles so far on this hike to accommodate the weather and to acclimate to the elevation. I actually slept the best on the trip last night. We went over two passes today and hiked 16.5 miles. to get close to our last pass.
Every time I go hiking I fight my fear of heights. It has been a major issue with me all my life. Try being an aircraft sheet metal man sitting on an edge of a wing 15 ft off the ground. I developed great ass muscles holding on for dear life in those instances. Not so much the fear of heights but the fear of falling. building our cabin the ground would actually start moving on me when I would get too high on the extension ladder. But I got it done. today going over dead horse pass my heart was a pounding when we had to make our own trail going up on loose dirt and rocks and one fall was a going to be a big step backwards. sad to say we saw a 10 yr old boy later with his dad that had hiked the trail up also and kicked ass and was working their way back. So much for my ego. But we all fight our own demons in our own way, so I am happy with what I did. Larry Boy scampered up the trail and marked our trail for us so we didn't have to walk on the remaining snow much. There was a big patch of snow that was ice and slush and if you slipped you were headed down a few hundred feet to a quick stop at boulders so that is why we made new trail.
fittingly dead horse pass has a horse's skull along with the bit still in its mouth, but no way was I stopping to take a fricking picture.
earlier in the day we had climbed Red knob pass at lowly elevation of 11,800 I think. piece of cake. we saw some deer and a few elk on the trail. we passed one lake called ledge lake that had the excess water run off falling over the cliffs. It was quite a sight.
we camped at Brinkley lake a mire 12 miles from mirror lake. it was a long hot day but we beat the thunderstorms to camp. the mosquitoes were horrendous here as well. In fact for most of the trip we were all wearing deet 100 and glowing in the dark from it, and the bugs still came. Sherpa and Grizzley did some fishing at the lake and caught some nice brooks.
the trip has been great, even in the rain/wind storm. these sights you can't see from a car or ATV. this is a true wilderness area, chain saws aren't even allowed here. speaking of sawing, the day before we went through an area that had burned and the trees were weakened and dead from the fire but still standing. when the big winds come through they tumble like bowling pins. some of the areas we saw looked like they had dropped a bomb there. I was waiting for zombies to come out at any time... I had my three inch blade ready....
dead horse pass looking down from coming up. dead horse lake is below and ice had just come off. would have been a great place to camp but we had many miles to still walk
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