ET's Info-Stew

13:20: I'll start where I left off. At about 15:00 yesterday, clouds started gathering. Dad said that if rain comes, it will come fast and will be quite bad. So I put everything away in case of a storm. At 15:45, the clouds were starting to go away, and by 16:30, there were no clouds in the sky. No storm ever did happen, but it was exciting watching the clouds build up. I had the Chicken Teriyaki for dinner. It was extremely good. One of my favorites. We had a nice big fire with on piece of wood that would not burn out. I slept better last night. I still woke up a lot, but at least I was able to go right back to sleep. I woke up at 7:30 and packed up. We hit the "trail" at 10:22. We followed the Packsaddle Lake outlet to Piute Creek. There was a place we could cross but Dad said he didn't want to chance it. He said he was going to wade in his tennis shoes, but I thought there might be an easier place to cross downstream. After 20 minutes, I had crossed the creek wading to my thighs, and there stood Dad, dry as a bone waiting for me. He had found a decent place to jump across a little upstream of where I first said we should cross. We started going down the canyon looking for the trail leading to Lower Honeymoon Lake. We found the trail, which seemed to cross Piute Creek at a bad area. We decided we would go further down just in case it wasn't really the trail. After a while I look at the map and decided the first trail was the correct one. But we decided we would keep going down into Hutchison Meadow to find a campsite. I sure didn't want to climb 600 feet to get to the lake, and going to the meadow would shorten tomorrow's trip significantly. So we went to until we crossed French Creek, but decided to go back a little. We found a campsite up a quarter mile, and that is where we are. The first thing I did was set up my tent, get in and take off my shoes. Evidently wading across Piute Creek make water go into my waterproof socks and into my liner socks. It wasn't very comfortable. I also got into the tent because there are storms of horse flies around, biting when they get a chance. Then, five minutes ago while writing, I leaned my arm on my sunglasses and broke them. Not exactly a good day so far. I plan on going to Piute Creek and washing my shoes and socks. Right now, Dad is down there taking some pictures.

18:25: After finishing my last log entry, I took my shoes and socks down to the creek. I had planned on just doing laundry, but something just made me want to go skinny-dipping, so I did. After a few minutes, I was able to comfortably stand waist deep in the pool. But going down to my chest and head was more of a "see how long I can stand the cold" type of thing. I rinsed off the accumulation of dirt on my skin and hair. I got out, cleaned my clothes, and put them on a rock to dry. The flies were horrible down there. After several minutes of moving around to keep the flies off, I decided to go back to camp and grab my sweats. They helped keep the flies from biting, and allowed me to take a nap by the creek while my clothes dried. I came back up to camp around 1700 and make dinner. Now the flies are all gone, but the mosquitoes are horrible. Other than that, this is a pretty good alternative to Lower Honeymoon Lake.