I might be too tired to be writing. Lindsey and I just got home from a loop up in Desolation Wilderness.

We left on Friday after post-work barbeques and camped by the side of the road not too far from the trailhead.

In the morning, we chatted up some Forest Service staff who were out repairing the Barrett Jeep Trail. While they were intimately familiar with the area, they didn’t know where the Red Peak Stock Trailhead was. It’s that obscure and rarely traveled. Not totally confident that we’d find our trail, we hiked up the jeep trail to find it anyways. Anyone that’s a competent navigator should be able to find and follow the Red Peak Stock Trail. Sometimes faint, sometimes only cairned, we had little problem following it and I found it to be fun and beautiful. It’s really neat to be so high on the crest that dominates over the central valley.

Camp at Lake Schmidell was made somewhat early and I took advantage of it by napping the day away. Beyond drooling on my pad, we swam, ate and talked science. We’d planned on going for a larger loop, but neither of us really wanted to do all of that walking.

Today’s start was late and leisurely. A welcome cloud cover made hiking all the more enjoyable past Lake Lois and Doris. At lunch (tabouli again – delicious) it started to rain. Being a multi-year drought, that’s really damn nice.