The rising moon looks like it would be incredible right now, unfortunately these trees on the ridgetop are blocking most of the view. Gabe and I are cowboy camping on two spots that are somewhat clear and somewhat flat. The upside is there is a great view to Glacier Lake below and Glacier Peak off in the distance.

I woke up around 6:00am and got out of the actual sleeping bag around 6:30am. Gabe and I got on the trail around 8:00am. Hiker box Special came by and we talked to him for a bit. He had used my trail planning program so we talked about that for a bit. We had a pretty fast six miles, uphill, to Deep Lake. The other two thirds of the day ended up being the usual start/stop/start thing that took a lot longer.

Ate a bunch of huckleberries on the climb up to Deep Lake. They are getting past the point of being ripe and are now starting to turn to mush when you grab them. Smelled a dead animal and it instantly brought me back to Australia, where I was smelling dead animals on the road every 20 miles or so.

Took a break at Deep Lake and then climbed up out of the canyon. It was pretty scenic overall. Got to the big nasty creek crossing and I spent a while there getting video and photos. Ran into VP there. He said he was glad he had forgotten his rain jacket. The guy at the Aardvark made him a big vegan meal and then when he hiked out the next day, the views were really awesome he said. "They were really foggy for us", I said.

Crossing the creek was no problem, but I stepped on one rock and the next thing I knew I was bouncing off my butt on another rock. My CamelBak nipple popped off and water was going everywhere. I got real bad hot flashes and started sweating from my forehead. At least all of that didn't happen while I was in the creek. Despite being a bit dizzy I crossed the remainder of the creek and rested for a bit.

Down the trail we ran into a trail crew, farther up Gabe suddenly stopped, bent down, and came up with a Leatherman tool. It had some rust starting on it so it had been there a while.

After Deception Pass we ran into a couple girls. They asked how far the pass was and I said that it was just right around the corner. I realized I had been zoned out a bit and it was actually about 1/2 mile away by that point. Oops.

Gabe and I got water at Deception Lakes and started the climb. We figured we would try and camp somewhere on the ridge. Got to the ridgetop and found a couple spots that would fit a sleeping bag. Was annoyed when I took out my ground sheet that I had forgotten to dry it out in the sun. It would have taken all of five minutes, now it was kind of damp and I was going to have to sleep on it.

Made a big stir fry dinner and called it a night. Looks like tomorrow we should hit Stevens Pass around mid afternoon unless we screw around.