Man Trip

I have a friend named Zach who told me about a tradition he had where his friends got together for a hike every summer. Only those friends were all getting on with life and too busy to go so we started talking about us going. Our first trip was last summer with the intention of climbing Wind River Peak but we got rained out. So this year we tried again with a few friends and did not get rained out :)

The hike in was supposed to be 12 miles but we took a wrong trail and added 4 miles of beautiful scenery to make it about 16 miles to camp. We did a little fishing the next morning then discussed the plans. The other three guys were not feeling up to the challenge of climbing the peak so Zach and I set out to see if we could make it. The map showed 2 trails when really there were 3 but only two were obvious trails. So we took the one that was clearly marked and agreed with the map and ended up at the wrong place (A short way past the sign we were supposed to see a rock pile on the other side of a stream covered by bushes). It wasn't far from where we wanted to be so we started climbing a ridge thinking we would still make it to the top only to be confronted with a large cliff dropping and rising again to the peak we wanted to be on. We were so close we could have thrown a rock at it but couldn't get there. So we enjoyed the amazing views from our high ridge then slid down a huge snow chute back to the lake and the trail we were originally looking for. We followed the nearly invisible trail back to where it met back in with the other trail and made it back to camp. Then the real fun started: everybody wanted to go and sleep in their soft beds... So after 8 miles of climbing we packed up and agreed to get everybody back to the truck, 12 miles away. So the longest day I have ever hiked was 20 miles with about 4000 ft elevation change (twice), with a full pack (not to mention swarms of mosquitoes). Great trip!