I woke up around 6am today and quietly dropped my tent while stepping over and around my two new friends. They woke briefly and said good bye. I think they are staying an extra day. I’m sure we will meet again in Ventura.

I decided to switch to my new shoes this morning. My old ones have been worn smooth. Put on my new shoes, relieving me of another 4 pounds of pack weight.

Had some climbing to do today. First to get out of Elk Lake, then some more on the trail. First 5 miles were exposed burny areas. It was early and it seems the temperatures are beginning to moderate. Overall a pretty easy morning hike.

The terrain began to change from all forest to a mix of forest / alpine meadows. Each clearing I got a peek at the surrounding mountains, AKA the Sisters. It was spectacular…. Here was the first clear view

This opened up into a huge alpine walk with occassional forays into the forest. Had to take another crappy selfie. To the right is the South Sister (I think). Shortly after that I stopped for water at a stream and ran into two gals who were doing their annual girls-go-hiking-for-a-week thing. Their packs looked so heavy. While I was filtering out some water they kept asking me questions about stuff. Do you have rain gear? How much does sleeping bag weigh? etc. It is kind of nice to have my equipment mostly dialed in right now.

So up here in sister-ville, we have the North, Middle, and South Sister. Then sitting off to the left we have “The Husband”. Not sure what’s going on with this family.

Wish I there was a geologist around to explain some of what I’m seeing. There were some huge lava flows around those craters. Mountains of the stuff. Earth Poo. I’m curious why there are so many craters next to each other.

Continuing on, I walked through the obsidian limited use area. Cool water fall, but I only snapped a passing photo.  The bugs owned this spot.

While watering up at the falls, I spoke with an Old-timer who told me the next 15 miles would be on/off lava rocks, with a crescendo of a 5 mile stretch with almost no break. Got that to look forward to tomorrow. I setup at the first tent site outside the limited use area and crashed. It’s a nice spot. No mosquitoes today, great scenery, and 23 miles + 1.5 from Elk Resort.