July 19: Skull Lake to Dads Lake
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| We basically followed this small stream up to pyramid lake. |
We had but a few sprinkles that night and I was wondering if I’d ever get rained on again while backpacking as this was my 16th consecutive night in the back country without getting rained on. I was up by 6:15 and started working on finishing off the firewood that had been left behind. I quickly prepared breakfast and packed for our day hike up to Pyramid Lake 2 miles north. By 8:30 we were on our way. By 8:45 Yumi was griping about having to climb again.
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| Yumi and I near Pyramid Lake. |
Pyramid Lake was stark, but beautiful. Yumi stopped along the shore---probably to curse me---while I climbed a bit more and discovered a couple and their dogs just breaking camp from a well-concealed site. I called Yumi up and the four of us chatted for a while before we moved on to check out the drainage to the west---another fantastic area. We sat on some granite for a while looking into the valley hoping to see some form of wildlife a couple hundred feet below without luck. This would have been yet another great area to camp as well as the drainage east of Ambush and Raid Peaks to the northwest. Again, I started mentally planning my next adventure to the Winds.
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The trip back down to Skull Lake went quickly despite taking nearly a half hour to chat with Anna and David who were on their way up to Pyramid Lake after spending the night at Skull Lake themselves. It wasn’t until 1:45 that we finally shouldered our packs and began what was really the beginning of our hike out.
Though the temps had been warm all week, it was really hot today as we spent most of the time hiking in meadows or along lakes. The highlight of the day was Washakie Creek. More great camp sites and views of the backside of the Cirque could be found here. It was a bittersweet moment, however, as we both knew that the best views were already behind us, leaving us little to look forward to for the next day. We staggered through the heat and found a very illegal campsite within 50' of both Dad's inlet stream and trail. Since it was already severely impacted I didn’t feel too badabout using it, though I have to admit to a good deal of paranoia that someone would hike down to the lake and see us.
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| Pyramid Lake. |
Not a soul came through, however. In fact, we saw nobody between Skull and Dads Lake at all. We enjoyed our last night out on this hike viewing a tremendous sunset and another fire. I'm sure Yumi was probably thinking of a hot shower and fresh vegetables while I was thinking of all that needed to be done tomorrow night to get ready for the next trip.
