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| Day 4 - Moraine Lake |
| We idled in the morning - our rainfly was soaked when we awoke, so we just spread it across a rock to dry in the morning sunlight. Had a leisurely breakfast and packed slowly. As we were finishing, a trail crew member came strolling through camp with an armful of rope bridles. "You wouldn't happen to be looking for an animal with a cowbell on, would you?" Dan asked. Once we pointed him in the direction they'd run to, we cleaned up and headed out. The map indicated a gradual climb up the eastern side of the arroyo, and we were looking forward to a less grueling experience than yesterday's. The map lied. Or maybe we just wanted to read it that way. We passed a trail crew chopping weeds and headed up a dozen switchbacks and more I was breathing hard. I was hurting. It's all a blur. Eventually we came to the plateau, and I promptly sunk up to my shin in a mud puddle. Watch out for that. We walked thorugh dry, woody meadows until we came to a suitable spot for lunch and a nap. |
| Above: The Chagoopa Plateau mocks us from afar. When, oh when will we ever get there? Well, it sure seemed to take forever. You can see it in almost the middle of the picture. |
| Right: We was powerful hungrified when we finally reached the Plateau. Yum, saltines and squeezy-cheese! I had poppyseed bagel chips and the last of the mini bonbel cheeses. This was a lovely woodland meadow just about a mile into the flat terrain. |
| Right: Moraine Lake in late afternoon. You can barely see the high reed grasses to the rear left of the lake. This was a very warm lake, and we weren't quite sure what feeds it, as John hiked around the entire lake and found no streams. One theory is a spring. I wonder if it just gets enough winter runoff that it never evaporates entirely. |
| Below: Moraine at sunrise. Wow. The surface was almost entirely smooth. |
| The meadows grew drier and drier, and soon we were trudging through dusty sand and trees that didn't offer nearly as much shade as they ought to. Our goal for the day was Moraine Lake, and it seemed like we would never get there. After a hot, miserable hike that seemed to slow down rime itself, I looked over to my right and saw blue through the trees. "Look, there's the plateau edge again," I said. Dan looked over at it and laughed at me. "Look at your edge. It has ripples." Hallelujiah, we had reached the lake. But we weren't the only ones this time. |