Out of the river and into the highlands

0545:
Joe: Hey Josh are you as cold as I am?
Josh: Yeah I'm freezing, what the hell. I even took out my puffy to put on top of me, still freezing.
Joe: We can't get out of our bags yet.
Josh: I know, this is terrible.
Joe: We need coffee
Josh: zzzzzzzzzz

Around sunset we were greeted with a small rainstorm that left everything wet. What we didn't expect or notice were the icy temperatures that followed.  We both have the exact same sleeping bag that's rated to 20 degrees and both were freezing. Apparently our soaking wet socks and shoes also froze solid. It was cold and wet and icy, both of us spent the morning complaining about it to each other. Good thing we are manly men, we put on our frozen shoes and jumped right into the first of a few streams we had to cross.  Eventually we made it to Snow Lake, there is a campground at snow lake and we were eager to yogi some food. Unfortunately no one was there.

The trail, more like bearing lead us up a canyon and to a vast grassy expanse. It was very scenic and even more windy. The wind kept us from lunch until around 2 pm, eventually we had to stop and tried to get shelter under a tree. That was 14 miles in. Afterwards we followed forester service roads for another 5 miles and had to take a 2 mile side trip to get some odd tasting water. Back on the forest service road we hiked another 2-3 miles wishing the day was over. We hit the 2.5 mile cross country section hoping there would be a good place to camp, no luck because the pine trees were gone and the wind was back. Exhausted we pushed on, we almost stayed in some cattle corrals because the sheltered us from the wind.  A couple more miles down the road we saw trees, beautiful trees.

We got a camp site but the wind is still making the sky howl. Dinner was tasty and camp is cozy as it can be. We figured about 25 on trail miles and 2 off trail miles for a total of 27. My body feels every mile. Spirits are good and we're really hoping to get Joe to Pie Town, it means a lot to him.

If you know of any blogging apps for your cell phone, please let me know. I would really like the ability to add photos to posts from my cell phone.