Mildred Lakes

This was supposed to be a backpacking trip to catch both the sweet light and the fall colors, but my hiking companion backed out and just wanted to do a day hike.

This is the camera I use on all of my hikes now:



Got some okay photos, but no sweet light.  We left home at 6:45 and reached the trail head at 8:00.  I ate breakfast at the trail head and the hike started at 8:10.  Phil got there first and started hiking and he left notes with time stamps on them.  His pace was slightly faster because he was not stopping to take pictures.  We met up with him at the creek.

I had a fairly easy time hiking up to the top of the hike.  Taking care of my Iron stores has made a tremendous difference.  I'm going to have to watch it though.  I need a new way to measure how tired I am and how hard I have been working.  I used my extreme breathlessness to pace myself in the past.

We hit the top at about 1 and the first lake at about 1:30.  My hiking partners looked tired and I was feeling it too.  I suggested that we turn around at the first lake and my partners agreed.  I wanted to go to the second lake anyway and made a very short false start at it before I turned back.

We had a long lunch at the first lake.  We were back to the ridge top at 3:30.  We hiked the rest of the way out with out taking any breaks.  We were running out of light and did not savor hiking this trail in the dark.  I have hiked this trail in the dark from Huckleberry Creek to the trail head.  On this hike we only had to use our headlamps for about half an hour.

We were back at our cars at 7pm.  I don't know where the time went.  How did we spend 11 hours?  Even if we only hiked 1mph then that means we spent 4 hours not moving.  I don't get it.

Sadly I had to leave Sage at home.  She will not ever be up for this hike with her bad hip.

I took both my Ricoh GR II  and my Nikon D90 for this hike.  My Ricoh with its prime lens outshone the D90 on every comparison shot.  The Nikon was equipped with an 18-55 lens.

7 miles with with 3,100 feet TOTAL elevation gain on this up and down route.

This is the camera I use on all of my hikes now: