Day 2 - backpacking

Don't start here!!!  Day 1 is below and that is where the story begins. 
These blogs always confuse me, how I should write my stories and where I should put my captions.

The next morning we woke up to a decent day.  Not sunny and warm, but it wasn't currently raining.  Overnight several storms rolled through with lightening and rain, but we stayed pretty nice and toasty in our tent!  I got up and went down to get our stuff out of the tree.  Clint talked me into making the meal from the night before for breakfast.  (it was tough boiling that water and dumping it into the bag, but I resisted...)  I must admit, it was delicious.  Then we hung miscellaneous items above the burner to try to dry them out a little.  My hubby is so spoiled though...  he actually got breakfast in bed.  Not exactly steak and eggs, but Mountain House makes a good meal.  His pants were worse off than mine, so we tried to dry them out a little before he got up. 

Home sweet home!

Then while I gathered up our stuff and got it semi organized, Clint went a did a little glassing to see if he could find any goats.  Because he is awesome, he actually did find 3 on a Mountain way far away.  Woo-hoo!  Goats!!!!  You can just make out the white dots in the red circle below.  Those are the goats!

This lifted our spirits immensely.  The night before wasn't good for glassing and we were really bummed.  So, actually seeing goats made us super happy!

On the hike out we stopped and took some pictures of the basin...  You come over this ridge and it's all in front of you...  beautiful!

On this picture I put some arrows to show different things...  They didn't turn out very visible, but the red arrow was camp, the turquoise arrow was where we got stuck in the storm, and the purple arrow is where we climbed up the ridge. 

Clint said we looked kind of like the Klampets with all of our gear strapped on the pack frames...  I think we look like trained professionals.  Here are Kimber and I ready to hike out.

Wild onions

Indian Paintbrush...  a flower for Lisa :)

Isn't it incredible?!?!?

We ran into a few bear tracks on the way in and out.  Clint was pretty sure they were all black-bear.  Besides that we really didn't see much sign besides some scat.  We did however see a really nice bull moose!  He was running away though, so no pictures!

Of course on the way out it started storming again.  We made really good time and this was about a mile from the trailhead.  The trail was a muddy slimy mess.  Luckily, the last mile was on a road that had been washed out, so it wasn't nearly as muddy. 

We got back to the truck about 2:30 pm and jumped in for the drive home.  Carrie had taken Dane home from daycare so we had to get home and pick him up.  Dane not only had an incredible time with Grandma and Grandpa, but he also got to hang out with Carrie, Brock and Mark.  (thanks guys!)  I'm not even sure he missed us!  (okay, I think he may have a little, I know I really missed him!)

We had a great time and feel like we have a better idea of what to expect.  We are taking a trip the end of September to see if Clint can get his goat, so wish us luck!  I do know that we need rain gear and warm clothes, cause the weather is crazy up there!!!