Saturday, June 20, 2015

Mom & Amy Backpacking Day 3- Jefferson Park to Pamelia Lake

Mom- I slept okay but heard two coyotes fighting in the middle of the night very near the campsite, which woke me up for awhile.  I was up early as is my pattern when sleeping in the woods.  I boiled water and started breakfast.  It was a bit hard to motivate Amy and the mosquitoes were out again by the time she was having her breakfast, but I had some good time to write and read while those mosquitoes were still sleeping.
Mom- I was still amazed to be enjoying the close view of Mt. Jefferson!  Jefferson Park is incredible!  It was an honor to camp in such a lovely place.
Amy- Mt. Jefferson was the most beautiful thing I ever saw up close!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mom- We started our day of descent through wildflower meadows and past small alpine lakes.
Mom- Amy decided she was up for continuing our five day trip.  I so admire her tenacious spirit.  We spent some time in the morning with a prayer card and writing gratitudes.
Mom- After descending to the meadow, we came to Russel Creek which flows straight out of the Russel Glacier.
Mom- We crossed over the ankle deep water of Russel Creek making for a day of very wet feet.
Mom- We were expecting a long, but somewhat easier day of hiking downhill toward Pamelia Lake.  When we started descending we quickly started hiking over a lot of brush and down trees.  There was quite a bit of devil's club.  There were places I was not sure I would make it with my big pack.
Mom- It was slow going, but there were some views along the way and the forest was lovely.
Amy- there was some sad ruined nature from a big fire.
Amy- We took a long break at some rocks.  I pretended they were thrones. The highest rock was for God the king. The next highest was for Analise the princess. The other high spot was for me the queen. the magic warm couch for mom the fairy godmother.
Mom- We stopped to have lunch at a small lake.  Rather than filter, we boiled water for lunch and boiled more water for reserves.  It was a pretty little spot.
Mom- We continued to see pretty rhododendrons.  We met up with a thru hiker with the trail name "baby moose".  She said she hopes to be out backpacking when she has kids as well.  She was pretty impressed? or amused by the weight of my pack, but I was carrying two sleeping bags, two sleeping pads, and food for two.  I did have things hanging all over the place and it was not exactly a lightweight backpacking job.
Mom- We crossed another ankle deep creek called Milk Creek.
Amy- There were a lot of good smelling pine needles.
Mom- We turned off the PCT and took a trail west toward Pamelia Lake.
Amy- This mushroom is a gigantic mushroom for a mushroom!!!!!!!!!!
Mom- We got to Pamelia Lake late in the afternoon.  The water was so low!
Amy- Pamelia Lake had a couple islands too.
Mom- We started to set up camp then realized via some hikers that we needed to camp in a designated site.  There was only one on our side of the lake as far as I could tell and we were glad to pack back up and snag it.  We had hiked 7.5 miles which should have been "easy" and downhill but were actually quite slow.
Amy- We had another tent party which was pretty fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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