The night was rather mild only dropping into the low 50's. The next morning and day were rather uneventful. We were up, ate breakfast, and did some brief fishing before determining we wanted to get onto Toxaway lake before it warmed up much more. This trek I thought would take much longer but quickly we arrived at the lake. It is a mile long, which is amazing to me since we were setting basically on the top of the mountains. A mile long lake at 8300 feet, and who said God isn't creative. Oh yeah, this lake must have just happened with a big explosion. The pictures below will completely throw that idea right out the window. Not knowing exactly where we wanted to camp other than knowing we had a big hike the next day to over the pass we did decide that we want to be at the one end and get as much walking out of the way today as possible. Without knowing how many sites were suitable for the three of us we walked until we found a good site that would be fairly easy on our backs for sleeping. We drop our backs, made a quick bit to eat and proceeded to fish as we hiked the balance of the mile long lake until we found a better spot or an equivalent one to where we were. We did in a little meadow and the very end of the lake right at the foot of our next days hike. The fishing was scarce at best until I hit one little hole that landed me 6 fish all that hit the line as lunkers but ended up only being little pints that we tossed back. Our home for that night was perfect. We had an amazing view of the mountain peaks, lake, and the fishing was fabulous. Jim and I must have had 20-25 fish each that evening. None of which made it to our frying pan unfortunately but it made for a very enjoyable and relaxing time.
The next morning was more of the same. This night was slightly cooler dropped down into the low 40's but a far cry from the high teens I have tolerated in nights before up in the Sawtooths. Breakfast, fishing, and then on the trail by 9 was our plan and what we stuck too and we were glad we did. This portion of the hike started at Toxaway at ~8300 feet and went up the mountain eventually hitting 9390 at just 1.5 miles. Yep your right that is pretty much straight up. We came across what we are calling a mountain goat. The reason we are not sure is something got to it and left a few bones and a pile a fur just off the trail. Rather amazing but at the same time a little nerve racking knowing that at some point within the last several months something had been through here that did it. We finally reached the top and the view was absolutely gorgeous. The jagged peaked bowl on the other side with 3 beautiful lakes below was ...... Speechless is what I am. Hard to put into words. The wind was howling through this little saddle and after sweating the whole way up we took out pictures and quickly began to descend down. The picture of the two guys. Neither one of them are my boss nor Jim. A couple guys came up and we crossed paths at the top. They came from the direction we were headed. Funny story, but I'm not laughing. Their camera broke and they asked if they took a picture of the three of us would we take a picture of them and email it. What a deal. I was half way in the process of trying to set the timer and get it just right to get the beautiful scenery and the three of us also. We posed first and then they did and boom we were done right. Well when the trip was over and I got home and began looking through the pictures to see how good they were I noticed the picture of the two clowns as I will now call them and nope no picture of me with my two fellow hikers. The clown didn't hold the button down long enough for it to take. What are you an amateur. Onto my trip. The wind continued to blow. We hiked down to another lake that we wanted to fish and the wind kept increasing and the temp get dropping. Lunch was served and we started noticing clouds rolling across overhead and each one that went by was bigger and darker than the last. At this point we made the decision to hike as far as we could with the hope that meant the car. We all decided with as nasty as each cloud looked as it came in none of us wanted to spend our last night up at elevation weathering a storm that only meant the next day was a hike out. Not much to look forward to. The reason we struggled with this decision is we were still 7.5 miles away from the car and we had already hiked 2.5 miles up to this point. Two things convinced us to give it a go. The first was the storms rolling in but second this was all down hill. We made great time making it in 2.5 hours. We were flying but the last mile was along Petitt lake and it took forever. In my first few sentences of this blog I mentioned I enjoyed almost every minute of it. This last mile I did not enjoy one bit. I was tired, my feet were tired and had hot spots all over them and I was plain worn completely out. I would absolutely make the trip again just may not hike all the way on the last day. I will leave you with a few photos to visually display my story.
