Evening Outing to the Big Five Lakes

Campsite Arrival Group Shot! As I said before the hike up and then down to the second of Big Five lakes was relatively short and not particularly difficult, but it was steep and the hike down was a bit brambly, so here we are with slightly increased heart rates, happily arrived. It was a lovely setting when we finally found the best spot to put our tents.



Next we took off on a little side hike to Big Three, Four, and Five Lakes. Our book/online info said that there weren't many good campsites further along, but that it was well worth the walk. It was a fun little hike since it was a little more off trail, which we did a lot of this trip compared to normal. It was a bit buggy though. And on a final note, part of the lack of pictures at the first of the five lakes was that I was using a new filter on my camera and there seemed to be a small spot that created a glare in a bunch of the pictures; its evident in the first two below as well unfortunately.












The final lake was truly beautiful with really fantastic rock in the mountains behind. It had a pretty awesome meadow, stream laced area leading up to it too. It was very calm, still, and quiet there too. It was getting a little dusky though, so most of the area was in shadow and with no tripod, these don't really do it justice. So just imagine it being even awesomer than these.

Day Three--The Hike

Day three was pretty, but uneventful. It was also the hump day of hiking, so I was feeling a little less than energized on the morning climb, leading to a relative lack of awesome photos.

Here is the first, bright-eyed photo of the day though:

After a long climb, we stopped for a tired lunch (for me anyway. Some other people may have been a bit perkier!) There was a nice creak and some water fetching.

Further along, we stopped to dip our feet in a lake. I didn't take any photos of that though, as we climbed out on a rock and I didn't want to take the camera out there. After that stop, we proceeded down the other side of our climb to the first of Big Five Lakes. It was an easy, fast hike down and a lovely lake.

We explored very briefly with a snack break there and time for a group shot.

Then we proceeded up a short climb and then down an even shorter climb off the main trail to get to the second of the Big Five where we would be camping. And of course there was a nice view along the way!

Day 2: The Meadow and Arriving at Camp

And we're back to the backpacking photos! I'm really seriously going to get all these posted in the next two weeks, so we can really move on to something else. I love, love all the photos and it is a great reminder of coming summer, but I realize they are really taking forever to post and probably getting boring for those of you who kindly take time to check them out. So variety coming, I promise. In the meantime, a few more to end Day 2. Perhaps I'll do more interspersed posts like the protest ones if I can get out around town to take some new stuff!

So after we got over the pass, we descended relatively quickly into a very lovely meadow. The thing about meadows though, is while incredibly pleasant and pretty, they are really hard to photograph. I, for one, have not mastered it and for various reasons did not take the time to stop and focus on flowers and the like. So here is one rather sad attempt.

We passed another campsite with a nice lake. At this point, we didn't stop as we were not totally sure how far we had come.

The next section involved a little trail confusion, but then we pretty quickly made it back on track and passed by the awesome tree above. Then we arrived at our destination below.

We set up camp and everyone took naps. During this time, I walked around taking pictures for a bit. I'll only subject you to two below. I finally decided I would take a nap too and when I woke up everyone else was out exploring. I essentially stopped taking naps at age 2 because of the fear that something exciting would happen while I was sleeping, so I was temporarily rather unhappy about this situation. With many assurances that I hadn't missed anything spectacular and the thought of dinner, I recovered quickly though.