Miles Hiked: 15.5
Gratitude of the Day: I’m thankful for my friend Josh. He is a great friend who I can always seek out his advice and know that I’m going to get a thoughtful opinion. He’s also one of the most fun people to be around and you quite never know what to expect. I’m looking forward to catching up over a Old Fashion.
Chicken Spring Lake
This morning I woke up to the most amazing sunrise, just an explosion of oranges. I made coffee and ate breakfast while packing up and enjoying the sun warm the morning.
I was first out of camp at 6:25am and hiked alone all morning. It was so quiet and the terrain was absolutely amazing. Walking thru bristlecone pines alive and dead was beautiful. By 8:25 I was at the first water source, when you’d dip your water container in the creek small gold looking flecks would sparkle through the water.
A short break and then it was a 9 mile uphill climb to our destination camp at Chicken Spring Lake, an alpine lake sitting at 11,200 feet. The uphill was more along slow slog. I took a lunch at a spring 5 miles up and then pushed to the beautiful lake at 1:30pm. It was perfect. I dropped my pack and skinny dipped for the first time in the Sierra in a 50 degree lake at 11,200 feet. Then it was time to wash all my clothes and lay out in the sun relaxing for the rest of the day.
By mid afternoon everyone in the Salty Butt Bandits trail family had made it to the lake. And soon everyone was in the water and washing clothes as well. Later on Dunk, Maverick, Clancy, Pony Boy, Biggie and Huck took on the alpine lake challenge, to see who could stay in the lake the longest, with the requirement you must stay in at nipple line. Huck the Alaskan jumped right in (with his penguin floatie) and proceeded to swim across the lake. The rest jumped in with Pony Boy bringing his flamingo floatie. Ultimately Dunk won the contest outlasting Clancy, staying in the lake over 30 minutes.
The evening was people laying about and just enjoying the beautiful day. We all had dinner and crawled into our sleeping bags to watch the sunset over the mountain rim. I’m listening to the frogs as o drift off to sleep.
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