3 days off, 3 days in the woods

Over labor day weekend Joshua and I did one of the last big hikes he had on his list. We did about 34 miles to the Lyman Lakes and Cloudy Pass, out near Leavenworth. The first day we hiked in about 9 miles to the Upper Lyman Lakes. To get there we had to gain a fair amount of elevation. We also strapped on our boot spikes to make it over about a half mile of snow, uphill! It was exhausting but a fun challenge in its own way.

The entire weekend was so so sunny! Near the lakes we found a flat spot nestled in the trees to set up camp. We ate sandwiches, went to bed kind of early, and woke up in the middle of the night to a great sky-full of stars.

That morning we then woke up to a deer, I named him Gerald, hanging out about 3 feet from our tent. He was happy there so he just hung around while we made breakfast, so we made a new friend.

Strapped our packs back on and hiked about 8 more miles up into Cloudy Pass. Found a stellar shaded campsite that we dumped our packs at. Took a bit of time to hike up Cloudy Peak to grab some views of Glacier, I love all the fluffy white bear grass among all the spiky vegetation. We ate huckleberries, hiked back down to sneak in a nap in our hammock. Took a mini hike toward Suiattle Pass and pumped water. Then we made dinner that night, played games in our tent until sunset, hopped out to grab some sunset photos and to eat this weird mudslide backpacking dessert Joshua had bought, and went to bed

Final morning we packed up early, started our approximately 17 mile hike out that day. We broke it up with some lovely rest stops. My favorite was next to one of the waterfalls near Upper Lyman Lakes. We dropped our packs where we couldn't see anyone, soaked our feet in the water, and lounged around eating snacks for about half an hour. Took our last break in Spider Meadow, tried to wash the sunscreen and dirt from our limbs.

Once we were home we ran around looking for someplace with nachos or wings open, but all were closed, so we had to settle, haha not really settling, for pizza.

It was great to fit in one big backpacking trip before the season starts to tend toward rain.