Third Day

Today was as delightful as yesterday was hard. What a difference a day makes. We had planned to hike east up to a place called Horse Lake about a thousand feet higher, but after a mile of walking this morning, we were thwarted by snow, and plenty of it.

The melting snow had turned small meadows into ponds and the trail went right through the middle of them. Not really prepared for snow travel, Cappuccino and I turned back and decided to take the McBee Trail west and south.

We had avoided it early as it was over in the burn we had traveled yesterday, and we weren’t wanting a repeat of that today. But that looked like the only possibility, so we braced ourselves for a rough hike. Instead, the trail left the burn area after a few hundred yards and wound its way down through wonderful forest. There were running streams and good tread. There were still a few fallen trees to climb over, but they were few and far between. it was a delightful hike.

We eventually hiked by Corner lake, Goose Lake, Porky Lake, and a half a dozen unnamed lakes. After 8 miles we ended up at Mink Lake where we are camped tonight. A small point of land sticking out into the lake is the setting and we are set up in a copse of trees on the point.

A cold wind and clouds moved in this afternoon and rain is predicted for later tonight. But we are well sheltered and should do fine.

So it was a stellar day of hiking through the forest on good trail which is a great antidote for the hard day we had the yesterday. Tomorrow we circle back toward our starting trailhead, but will stop shy and camp one more night. On Friday we will hike back to the car and head home.

Until tomorrow, Happy Trails!