Journal Entries

Once we reached the first of the Alpine Lakes, we immediately had to hunker down and wait for a thunderstorm to blow over. Not the most pleasant follow up to the lovely climb, but what can you do? When it finally passed, we got to search for the pot of gold, at least.

After the storm passed, we spent well over an hour finding the route around the lake. We thought of swimming, but it looked kind of chilly. I feel like I'm in the arctic.

The climb out of the valley. One of my favorite parts of this hike, and it doesn't even have a name.

The climb out of the Camp Lake valley was pretty steep. The long rock slab that Mike's finger is on is what we ended up climbing. Straight up for about 800 feet.

From Camp Lake, there's no trail back up to Alpine Lakes, so we made our own. With so much crystal clear water and canyon walls, I'm pretty happy with this one.

Stopped for tea and route finding at the outlet of Camp Lake, far below Douglas Peak. As far as detours go, this one was pretty nice!

Up to the next pass, Douglas Peak Pass, but we decided it looked way too dangerous, so we took the low road. Dropping down to Camp Lake to get to the Alpine Lakes area by a different route. The initial descent was a bit wet...

We diverged from the original route once more to cross the continental divide at an unnamed pass, which is now Gutbox Pass. Now we can see the huge, snow covered peaks ahead. That's where we're going. Yikes.

We hiked up an offshoot canyon from Europe Canyon, this one below Victor Peak. Apparently the scenery here is not so great. See for yourself.

Big thunderstorm last night, and I'm so glad to be leaving that campsite. My tent was poorly placed, so even without the storm, I barely slept. But the morning started well with lovely scenery and quick hiking.