Wandering through Leavitt Meadow

was the way I spent my Labor Day holiday.

We left our house at 6:22 on Friday morning, much to my chagrin. It took Evan a lot of persuasion and promises of breakfast and coffee to rouse me.

Arrived at the Leavitt Meadow Campground around 10:24 and dressed in our backpacking gear. With food and water my pack weighed nearly 40 lbs, but I was still raring to go. With nervous anticipation we waited for the rest of our party and ended up leaving the campground at about 1:30 or so due to some logistical malfunctions.

Hiked out to Secret Lake - about 3 miles. Stopped and set up camp, which is considerably harder than I remember. At least it was that day. Cooked a delicious ready pak meal of Chili Mac with Beef! It was one of the best meals on the whole trip.

Freeze dried meals are not as bad as everyone says, especially if you let them cook in the pouch a few minutes longer than recommended. That, and a little Tapatillo sauce never hurts anything.

Saturday we hiked 6 miles to this little crappy pond of a lake called, Hidden Lake. Despite hiking uphill on pack trails, inhaling dust that smelled like horse poo, and literally choking on the grit kicked up by my comrades boots, I was looking forward to arriving at Hidden Lake. Disappointment set in as soon as I found a suitable campsite and Evan wanted to keep hiking for something better, which didn't exist. The land was crawling with big black ants that wanted to share my salami and cheese snack, along with horse flies that took me back to 555 Oakland Avenue.

The worst part was that the lake was ugly. Piddly, in fact. And hard to access.

Sunday we did a 4-5 mile day hike up to Fremont Lake which was well worth the once again uphill dusty grimy horse poo pack trail. It was gorgeous and huge. This is the point in the trip where I realized I'd been shooting up a camera that had no film in it. I was angry and frustrated, but managed to keep my spirit up by helping Evan pump water and eating lunch.

Monday we hiked out about 6 miles and Evan and I both ran out of water and had to hike the last two dusty miles in blazing heat without shade. That part sucked, but the hike was easy so I didn't complain too much.

I'm pretty tired though.

Due to my clumsy nature, I have a few scrapes and bruises some of which I will elaborate on later.

Hope everyone had a fabulous weekend.