3 Sisters – Day 4

What a day it was. Up at 5:30. Fed, packed, and on the trail by 7 as usual. We followed the McBee Trail southwest a mile to Spy Lake through a burn area. We stopped under the few trees that escaped the fire and grabbed some water. Then we continued southeast and then west through the burn to Corner Lake.

At the lake the trail winds westward though magnificent old growth forest which eventually are replaced by second growth. Hiking around the south side of Junction Lake we went the final mile to Rock Lake, our proposed campsite for tonight. But if the lake exists, we couldn’t see it from the trail. Not only is it a few hundred feet off the trail, but it appears they have moved the course of the trail a couple of hundred feet south of the old one.

So no Rock Lake and no water. Since we were counting on the water, we were in trouble. There was a chance that the tiny creek we had gotten water from on the first day, continued on and might cross the McBee Trail, but no guarantee. We knew there was no water on tomorrow’s stretch, the temperature had climbed again into the 80’s and there wasn’t even much of a breeze. Suffering had begun.

Rather than go back up a mile to Junction Lake we forged on hoping for that little stream to come through. When we spied a simple two log bridge spanning a crystal clear little brook we were ecstatic! It was 1PM and 85 degrees.

We had some lunch, debated stopping versus continuing on, and ended up camping near the stream for the night. Cappuccino found a perfect group of trees for hammocks and a tent site about 200 feet from the stream.

We set up our shelters and everyone took a siesta. Later we convened for dinner and congenial conversation. Surprisingly, there were almost no mosquitoes at dinner.

Tomorrow we hike out to the car, 5.6 miles away.