[sarbar]

This was the first backpacking trip for 2003, and it was a nice group of ladies. My son came along, this was his first real BP trip (age 5) and so did my hiking partners Robbieh and Nuts4Hiking (ie. Fogduo) We all met lasr year online doing a NW womens hike we put together. This year we had two new ladies join us :J. & T. It was a perfect size group! We met up in Quillicene at 9 am on saturday and headed up. This trail I had wanted to do last year and ran out of time so I was happy to get out. I was pleasantly shocked to see how good of condition that trail is in, there was only 1 major blowdown where you had to skinny over. Otherwise clear Well, we took forever hiking up We are SO notorious on how slow we are as a group when hiking-it took us almost 6 hours to hike 4.6 miles But hey we enjoy ourselves, nobody gets leg cramps and we take a ton of photos and compare scat findings. We hit snow at about 5,000 ft up but it wasn't bad. We found a really nice melted out area at Camp Mystery (5200 ft) and were able to fit all our tents in nicely. Funniest thing os it was actually hot at the camp-it is situated in a subalpine forest with Buckhorn and Iron Mt.s behind and Warrior Peak right across, but the trees are very open to the sun-though if you went down a few feet to the 2 streams it dropped by 10-15 degrees! We had light till almost 10 pm and the Alpenglow off of Warrior Peak was awesome!! At dusk we kept seeing a bunch of HUGE Mt. Hares-very fattened up I might add. We were the only ones up there camping in that area,saw some dayhikers but it was very nice and quiet! The sun came up around 4:30 I ignored it and snuggled into my bag instead-then my child rolled over ontop of me and about squashed my lungs He of course, spent his time trying to impress all the ladies with bad knock knock jokes....... We flew down the trail in well under 3 hours and were kicking back at the trucks when johnny law came by (ok, the ranger) who was checking for passes-and at least one truck there got a ticket (we of course are all good girls with passes!!) Sat and talked with the ranger for a while-like usual, people seemed shocked to know I drag my kid along behind me everywhere. It was awesome to have Ford with me, not just dayhiking, but doing what I really love: waking up in a subalpine forest with the sun in my eyes, the sound of a stream, and trees full of gray jays. That is heaven If you give this trail another week or two, Marmot Pass will be more acesible, it was solid snow after Camp Mystery. But the wild flowers are all opening and down below Shelter Rock Camp, all of the rhodies are just starting to bloom! I'd say in less than a week FS rd #27 will be ablaze in pink rhodies

[SlowPoke]

These go with Sarbar's trip report. We are all crippled up today but will be back on our feet in no time. My pace matches my trail name... No one left me behind no matter how slow I got. Thanks to each of you for a fantastic weekend! http://community.webshots.com/album/76355869sPhuZS

[sarbar]

Thank you SlowPoke! It was an awesome weekend! BTW, love the Ultralight-not photo of me Nothing like going from ultra light wanker one year to pack donkey the next

[foggy]

We had a great time even though it took longer than I expected, I'm out of shape, as I already knew. There are some great pics that are posted, so I'm sure checking out the photos will tell you all how much fun it was.

[sarbar]

Nice hooch shot Nutzie! Heehee...of course that shot of me on the log with my evil cell phone isn't very flattering!! Looks like I'm packing a donut under my coat

[foggy]

Hey Slowpoke! You can call me Slowpoke2. I was not going to kill myself getting up there. Thank you also for a great weekend as always, can't wait to do it again.

[foggy]

Geez were you right I look like a street bum in my tire factory hat.

[sarbar]

Heehee........ Goes well with my "spare tire" jacket