Daily Stats: State Lake to Marion Lake, Starting Time 8:30-Finishing Time 6:30, Distance-9.6 miles, Moving Time-6.0 hrs, total Ascent-4212', Total Descent-4307'
Honcho Boncho! Another picture perfect day! Is there any place more beautiful? There is still enough snow hanging on the peaks to provide contrast and definition to the rock while creating dynamic scenery. The streams issuing from these snow fields are full and collect to create raging torrents that we are obliged to cross. The sun illuminates it all with it's golden light, as if the whole place were in the spotlight. Exquisite!
Route finding was more involved today as we traversed 6 cirques in moving from State Lake to Marion Lake across three passes, each of a different color, Grey Pass, White Pass and finally Red Pass-passes of many colors. Gandalf would be proud.
Everyone is doing well physically, even Gary who is suffering from a terrible head cold. But he roughed it out yesterday and did great as we ascended and descended about 4000' each. Our low point was about 10,200 and our high point about 11,700.
It is amazing how remote we are. I keep asking myself, if someone got hurt, what would be the quickest way out? There is no quick way. We are 27 miles in over 5 high passes and the nearest trail is 7 miles away. We are currently camped at Marion Lake at 10,300ft, a beautiful azure blue gem set in a deep bowl of granite cliffs hanging on the edge of a precipitous valley with no trail to it. We dropped into the lake over 11,600' Red Pass. It makes each of us consider our actions a little more carefully, because the consequences of an accident are pretty profound.
Day 4 is a layover day, a chance to wash the sweat out of the clothes we have been wearing for three days, let the body recuperate, and give us a chance to do some casual exploring of the area.
The weather has been slowly improving. Day 1 we got rained on in the afternoon followed by drenching dew in the morning. On Day 2 the clouds built up in the afternoon, but lacked the energy and moisture to mount a rainstorm. A lite dew graced our packs, tents and equipment the following morning. Day 3 was bright blue sky all day with only a few little puffs of clouds visible and no dew on Day 4 morning.
The mosquitoes? Terrible! We are constantly surrounded by clouds of them. To make them endurable I like to think of myself as a rock star and the mosquitoes are my adoring fans, my groupies that follow me everywhere, seeking to get close and take home a souvenir, in this case, my blood. So the few time we are on dry slopes and the mosquitoes disappear I feel I may be dropping out of favor in the world of rock and roll.
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