This last weekend Gregg and I went on our 2nd annual Memorial Day backpacking trip. We took off on Friday after work and drove 4 hours up to Lone Pine, the town at the base of the Sierra's where we were going to be hiking for the weekend. We stayed the night in a small motel down town. It was a historic motel and there were no bathrooms in the room - just a sink...after we checked in we went to this really cool little diner for some cherry & peach pie - it was so yummy!
On Saturday morning we set off for our weekend adventure.
Yes - there were bears and it freaked me out!
The first day we hiked about 6 miles through the Cotton Wood Lakes Basin to Cotton Wood Lake #5.
For dinner the first night we made homemade chicken & dumpling soup and banana pudding for dessert - super yummy!
Our camp site was at the edge of the lake and surrounded by beautiful snow topped peaks - it was an amazing view! The first night was a little rough though - we didn't sleep very well. We think it had to do with the elevation- we were at 11,000 feet.
The second day we hiked another 4 miles to our next camp site. The hike was beautiful. We went through rock fields, forest, and meadows, the trail hadn't been opened yet so for part of the way we were making our own trail - it was fun climbing over all the big rocks and finding our own way around.
Our second campsite was up on a ledge looking over this meadow just at the base of this mountain. We could hear the creek running and had another amazing view of the snowy mountains.
After we set up camp we went exploring - we walked around looking at all the fish in the streams and then decided to follow the stream up the side of one of the mountains to see if we could find where it was coming from - we climbed up pretty far but never found the source - but we did find a beautiful area where the stream ran through a green meadow - it looked like a fairytale.
For dinner the second night we had a mountain man freeze dried meal but we made apple dumplings for dessert - it was really really good - I was impressed with our outdoor culinary skills!
This is the bear canister that we had to pack every night - we had to put all our food and toiletries in it so that the bears wouldn't be able to find anything in our tent they'd want to eat. It really freaked me out to think that there would be bears even close to our tent - so I was very diligent when it came to this chore!
We were able to have a fire the 2nd night - It was a little windy but it lifted our spirits and gave us something else to do for a few hours.
On Monday we packed up and hiked the last 3 miles out. We had a great time and we enjoyed the time we got to spend together.
In all I think we hiked just about 15 miles. Next year we'll do it all over again :)
