Backpacking to an Alpine Lake

We could try this. It's kind of ugly. I just got a new backpack. I had to get a new backpack for reasons that I might explain later, but this is my first time packing it since getting it in the mail, and everything seems to fit all right. It's not actually my prettiest pack that I've ever done, but I just needed a... I don't have a really good spot for the sleeping pad, so it might just have to go up here. I don't know. I'm trying to bring my Crocs as well, and whenever I use one of these water bottle pockets, I've learned to clip in the water bottle. Something I learned the hard way, of course. It's a goofy looking pack. Sunscreen, sunscreen. Okay, feels good. All right, I'm hiking out to a backcountry lake where I'm going to be camping tonight, and it's not too long of a hike. I think it's about 10 kilometers there and 10 kilometers back tomorrow. I believe there's a little via ferrata section and then a couple little river crossings, but this first part of the trail is just some double track. It might be too soon to tell. I don't want to jinx it, but so far this backpack feels really good. My old pack I bought probably five years ago now, give or take, and when I bought it, I swore to myself that I would never buy a new backpack until the day that I ran that one into the ground, and I did end up running it into the ground. Unfortunately, not the way I thought it would happen, but essentially I dropped it off a cliff. I was crawling down this ledge and I felt a little disbalanced. It was a big drop, so I took my backpack off and put it down first, and I was going to crawl down after. The backpack ended up rolling off of the ledge, onto another ledge, onto another ledge, and then off of the literal cliff. The cliff was a huge drop into like white water rapids below, so it absolutely could not be retrieved. I ran downstream and waited to see if anything would come out the river, and I got like my sleeping bag and a couple things back, but that backpack was long gone. I don't think anyone will ever find it ever again. So unfortunately I did have to buy a new pack, but there's a silver lining. This pack is so much lighter. My old pack was probably five pounds completely empty, and I think it fits a bit better too. Buffalo berries. Should I just do a barefoot for this one? When you're doing river crossings, you always want to make sure that your backpack straps are undone, which sounds counterintuitive, but if you were to fall and your bag strapped to you is waterlogged, dragging you down the river, it's like impossible to get up. As I've learned, it's better to sacrifice your pack than yourself. I'm going to wear the Crocs because I can see the bottom pretty good. Hey bear! Hey bear! You know, I also brought a little secret trick. I think it's in this pocket. Aztec death whistle. I don't ever use this if there's people around because I don't want to freak anybody out, but that's me doing it really quietly. But if you blow hard, it's really loud. Obviously I have bear spray as well for like actual protection, but you know I gotta keep this thing on me. I've been in the trees for at least a couple hours and finally the trail's opening up. I think from here I'm following all the way over to this scree slope. I don't know if you can see this line going up this way up close to the falls and then over to the lake. I just need my chest strap I think for this camera and then a little snack. The trail isn't bad at all, but it's a little disorienting up here. I'm like hiking horizontally over this really steep sloped edge and then I just feel this cavernous drop to the left of me. Szechuan peanuts. I'm getting closer and closer to the water, but I don't see any rungs. It's around here somewhere. A lot of bugs. Slippery and buggy. Okay, so I'm crossing over on that side. I see the chain now. There's one that starts down here and the chain follows up that little path. I guess I have to cross back down here. This looks a little rambunctious. There's a whole trail on this side. I don't know where this leads to. It's like here too. Okay, there she is. Okay, straight up from here. A little less crazy from here. That part was pretty steep. I don't know if you can see on the chest strap where you sent her. Climb. Oh my gosh, trail. Wow, it's a little bit exposed, but check it out. Coming up there was noise from the wind and the waterfall and everything and I came up over a certain point and it just kind of went silent. I'm going to find a place to set up camp. I didn't check before I left, but I'd bet good money that there's a fire van right now because it's been just smoking hot and dry. So no fire tonight, but a crazy place to sleep. Try not to step on any plants and stay on the trail. The flora and alpine environments like this can be super delicate, so I don't want to trample over anything. I brought my bivy instead of my tent because it's lighter and it's all I really need to sleep. I have a nice one with a mesh bug net that goes up like this and my summer sleeping bag, foam pad with a reflective side up and I have my pillow in here of course. Can't sleep without my nice pillow. Part of me wanted to set up camp right here next to the lake because I thought it would be so pretty to wake up to this view, but I know there's gonna be cold wind coming off of the water all night and I think it's already gonna be a chilly kind of sleep, so I set up a little further into the tree line to block the wind. I'm gonna eat here though. Look there's a little fossil on this rock right here. I think we're losing dust. I got the cheese dust. Cheers. I'm so full. I don't want to pack it out but there's a lot of pasta. I forced it. Slip knot, slip knot through here. I have so many hours of daylight left but it's pretty nippy out and I don't really mind being horizontal for a while, so I'm just gonna lie down in here till it's time to go to bed. I put my entire roll of toilet paper underneath these three rocks and a mouse stole it. Mouse poop. Mouse poop. Look at the sun. Vietnamese coffee. It's kind of a strange feeling up here. Last night when I ascended up to the lake I realized we're basically at the same level where the clouds sit at the top of the mountains and the fog rolled in really thick last night when I was sitting in my baby so I was just like looking up through my bug net at this cloud that we're sitting in and then this morning I wake up to this like tatooine looking sun. It's like I pulled up to another planet. Snack for later. Apple and tuna. Where am I gonna put this though? My hip straps are full of Aztec death whistles and cameras and not the tuna. Hey bear. Let's go back this way. He ran off but I can tell he's not that far. I just hit the tree line so if I just back up over to the rocks I can stay out in the open for a bit which I would prefer. He was cute though. I think we're good but I'm not going down that way for a bit. That's the way I have to go but I'm gonna wait it out. I think it was a black bear. This is what I was freaked out about yesterday. I was walking through the shrubs and there was berries all around me and the trail is probably one of the best places for the berries to grow because there's a break in the canopy and the sun can come in so there's berries growing all along the entire trail. I was alone all day yesterday obviously and I was just yelling and clapping the whole way for like three hours. If there was ever a time I finally get to use this, hey? It's so smoky today. Hiking back up was not cute. I've definitely seen a lot of bears in my life but usually from a very safe distance. I see them in the car all the time but even on trails I've seen them before from far enough away that I can watch and not feel like I'm in danger and that was probably the closest I've ever been. Such an incredible moment to be that close to a bear and see it with my own eyes. We could have made eye contact if he was looking. Pretty incredible to see and I can probably only say that because I'm sitting here safely right now and I think I just saw some people descending from the ridge up there so if I wait here long enough we can all probably just hike together. Made it back. Zero incidents. No bear maulings. I ended up meeting a lovely couple of ladies and we hiked back together the entire way and I had so much fun honestly talking to them. We exchanged numbers. We may or may not cross paths again in the future. I'm actually kind of grateful for the bear because I wouldn't have met those ladies had I not seen it and I'm super content like this was everything I wanted out of my camping trip and a little bit more. Thank you for hanging out with me and maybe I'll see you next time. Goodbye.