Sunday, July 20, Day 6

Despite an early wake up, we spend a long time packing up for the hike and get an alpine start at 10:10am. Our guidebooks and Internet directions differ on whether it’s 5.2, 5.5 or 6.0 miles to Big Sandy Lake, but since it took us 3 hours, we’ll call it 6 miles. The mountains in the distance grow closer but slowly as we plod along the dusty, horse-poop-choked trail. At the lake, we chill on an anty rock and prepare for the climb up to Jackass Pass. About this time, we get our first sprinkles of rain, though it soon clears up. Tash insists on wearing a rain jacket and sweater from here on out, because “it might rain again soon.” However she soon changes her tune while switchbacking up through a sunny meadow.

While on the subject of meadows, it should be noted that the wildflowers on this hike are OFF THE HOOK. Lupins, bluebells, Indian paintbrushes, dandelions, and blue, white and yellow flowers unnamed abound.

However we are not feeling so hot. A few hundred feet of climbing (remember, we’re now at 10,000 ft) leaves us exhausted as the trail transitions from nice dirt to boulder hopping and talus fields. Our search for the shortcut climbers’ path, described as a “faint trail appearing to lead nowhere” is made easier by a large arrow made out of stones on the ground. Unfortunately, by this time our respite from the thunderstorms that have been narrowly missing us is over. We set up our tent briefly to wait out one burst, but then hurry on. In the talus field below Arrowhead Lake, we have to huddle under a rock.

My laptop battery is running out and we're at a gas station in Thermopolis, WY that has wireless! I'll finish this later, go back for days 4-5 and put up pictures later.

Woo I'm back. Basically, after the rock-huddling, which did a good job protecting us from the storm, we continued through the rough terrain and thrashing storm, finally cresting the pass at about 630pm. Two annoying snowfields and another talus field later, we set up our tent and were met my swarming hordes of murderous mosquitoes. As we sit here in Custer, SD writing this, days later, we are both still COVERED in bites.

Well Mountain Housed, we collapsed into our sleeping bags at 10 pm or so, ready for the real test the next morning.