Lilly's trip was first. The weather was hot and sticky as we climbed from the trailhead at about 3,500 feet to the Pacific Crest Trail. We took a few minutes to relax by the lake, but then headed south for a few miles of well-maintained tread. We made pretty good time and found the junction right where I expected it to be. Since this was a sekrit™ location we looked around and disappeared into the brush.

It's not that the destination was a secret. After all, it's only a couple of miles off the PCT and people have shared its location on social media repeatedly. Still, there was something special about ducking off the trail and knowing the people that had been following us at a distance would wonder where we had gone.

The route starts as a bit of a trail hugging a steep hillside, then climbs steeply through thick trees. It doesn't get a ton of use so there's plenty of big steps, branchslaps, and spider webs. After about a mile of that joy we emerged onto rock.

In some spots the rock is the standard jumbled piles of talus we are so familiar with in the PNW. Over time, rocks have broken off the peaks above and piled up. Some of the fields are almost cemented in place while others still have loose rocks that tip and shift as you cross them. Both types are loads of fun to cross, but are also perfect habitat for pika. (And you know we were on the hunt. (That's foreshadowing, in case you can't tell.))

But the best sections are the ones that are big slabs of granite. Once we got on the rock there were no more trails. You could kind of make out a common route through the talus and across snow patches, but on the granite we relied exclusively on cairns.

I know, I know. Cairns. Blight of the wilderness. I don't like them either. Especially not when they are built as ad hoc monuments to previous visitors. I do have to admit, though, they're awfully handy when trying to decide whether to take the obvious trail to the right or the obvious trail to the left. (Everything is an obvious trail when you have Westsider's Syndrome.)

Up, down, around, and finally over one last ridge and the lake lay in the basin below us. It was as wonderful as expected. The lake is surrounded by rock and the water is the blue green you only find in the mountains. There are patches of heather and a few stunted trees, but no mostly rock. Lots of rock.

There were a bunch of camp sites scattered around the lake. We chose one that was isolated from the two other tents and a site on rock.

Beng on rock made it hard to put in stakes (big surprise), so we used the smaller rocks scattered around as anchors. It was probably overkill, but better than being unprepared.

We had a great evening watching the sun set and planning the adventures for the next day. We'd go over there and over there and over there and then we'd hang out with the pikas and collect snow and... so much to do. We fell asleep with the fly off the tent watching the stars appear in the clear skies. And woke up as the rain started falling on us around midnight.

WHAT? The forecast was for clear skies! There were no clouds when we went to sleep! Yeah, well, it was raining. And raining good. I got the fly up and we crawled back into our slightly damp bags. Even with that bit of excitement we were able to get back to sleep quickly.

In the morning the rain was still falling. But not just rain. It was now accompanied by gusts of wind. When the rain did let up we stuck our heads out and found we were in the middle of the clouds.

But don't despair. The clouds teased us by periodically lifting or being blown out of the way. We took advantage of the relatively dry conditions to explore and do some of the things we had planned before the rain moved in. Chief among these was SCIENCE!

We were able to collect samples for two of our citizen science projects. The Living Snow Project is studying algal diversity. To help, we collect tubes of watermelon snow and ship them to the Kodner Lab. We also continued making observations of pikas. We saw them on the way to the lakes and in the rocks all around camp.

Our fun was cut short by the return of the rain. We retreated into the tent and read. And read. And read some more. There might have been some napping, but lots and lots of reading. Just like on every backpacking trip with the kids I learned a lesson. The lesson from this trip is the night is dark and full of terrors. Well, maybe not quite that scary, but it's definitely dark and goes on and on. I always carry a couple of different ways to occupy our time. It's usually at least a deck of cards and a book or two (or three). We can find other things to do in camp, too. Whittling is always fun and making up stories with your teen can be very enlightening. (You can read the other lessons I've learned over the years in Raising Backpackers.)

Almost the entire day was spent in and out of the tent. It was definitely not what we had expected or hoped for. As we fell asleep to the continued sound of rain on the tent I figured we were owed nice weather. It would only have been fair since it was nice when we went to sleep the previous night and the it got lousy overnight.

No such luck. We woke early to the same lousy weather. Getting packed up in the rain isn't any fun so we delayed and delayed. When our time was up it was a mad scramble to get everything into our packs. All the extra water negated the weight savings we usually realize by eating.

All the views we'd had on the way in were gone, replaced by a curtain of gray. On the upside, it wasn't hot and there were no bugs. Even with the cooler weather we were warm enough that we shed layers when rejoining the PCT. We saw a bunch of dayhikers, a few thru-hikers, but no more pika or watermelon snow. On the upside, we descended through the clouds and there was no more rain or thunder.

We were one for three when it comes to weather, but batting a thousand for the overall trip. Between the amazing views, the SCIENCE!, and the time one of my kids there was nothing that could have made the trip better. Except maybe the weather.