I woke up to pee around 1:30 and the sky was clear, but it wasn't a very starry night. Then I was awoken by a light pattering of rain drops around 400. It didn't last long though. There was another light drizzle a little bit later, then the drops got bigger. At that point, I got dressed and went out to retrieve the hanging food bag before it got too wet. Dawn was coming, so I put it in my pack and lay in the tent listening to music until about 5:50. I got up then and sat outside, no rain. Not too much longer before Jason came down and Joe got up. Jason fired up the stove while I went around the corner and wiped myself down with a cleaning wipe. Then I changed for the day. Felt pretty good after that. I ate Gorp oatmeal for breakfast and drank 2 cups of coffee, then walked down to the lake to wash dishes. Dropped them off and then had a satisfying shit at a panoramic spot overlooking the lake. We got a little rain shower, brief, while we were packing up for the day hike, leaving tents up and some stuff at the campsite. Then we started hiking back up the switchbacks from the previous afternoon hike, continuing on to Fourth Lake, pretty marshy on the shore and loaded with mosquitoes. We didn't stay long before heading over to Fifth Lake, which was more scenic and less buggy. From there we started hiking up toward the next set of lakes, which included an extended stay at Summit Lake where Joe went in the water and said the temperature was much nicer than the previous day. We gathered up our stuff and continued on to Sixth Lake. The trails here were not as well marked. We followed a trail that ended up taking us to an overlook for a lake, but we weren't sure which one it was. Turns out it was definitely Sixth Lake, and in the distance we could see Seventh Lake (it was too far to hike over to, and there wasn't a defined trail to take us there in any case). We debated taking a steep descent presumably down to the lake's edge but decided to hike back and look for the trail we thought would lead us to Seventh Lake (there wasn't one, we had found the trail that got us as close to Seventh Lake as we could get). We hiked back to a meadow by a stream crossing and decided to stop here for lunch and an extended break. The weather continued to hold for us, and after the break we retraced our path back toward, and past, the turnoff for Summit Lake. We walked down from there and came to a fork in the trail, right after a little stream crossing. Jason thought we should take the path leading uphill, and we all generally agreed, although Mike wasn't so sure. In any case, we took that trail up to a little ridge, where we lost the trail. Jason and I were in the lead, and we bushwacked down the other side to what looked like a trail near a lake (we weren't sure which one it was). But we couldn't figure out where this trail led, it seemed to dead-end at a campsite somebody had set up. Feeling a little lost, I got out my phone and looked at the route we had mapped in Strava, trying to make sense of where we were and what we needed to do. Eventually, I figured out we were by Fifth Lake and we had made a wrong turn that necessitated us retracing our route back up and over the ridge we had just crossed. So that's what we did. Once we got back on the trail, we went back to the fork and took the other route, which was the one we had come in and should have taken in the first place. Mike had been right. The trail took us by Fourth Lake, on the south side, and we continued on to a trail that would lead us to Black Lake. Jason and I were out in front and chatting about our respective lives while Mike was a little behind and Joe was further back. Once we got to Black Lake, which was also quite scenic, the trail started descending and included a really beautiful vista of First Lake and Second Lake, where you could see the water flowing from one to the other. We got back to the trail where we had hiked in on Tuesday, and we followed it back to our campsite. Joe was running on fumes by the time we got back, but it turned out to be a very good hiking day. Dinner was curry rice for me, well cooked but needed some salt and pepper to bring the flavor out more. Joe was particularly tired, so we cleaned things up and secured the campsite, then went to sleep while Mike and Jason talked a little more before doing the same.
Total distance = 9.3 mi
Total elevation = 2000'
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