Woke at 1:00 am, half frozen, and tossed and turned til 2:00, then gave up and put on my fleece; Rick was also semi-awake.  Once I warmed up again, I slept from around 3:00 til 5:15 or so.  Up at 5:40, dressed heavy for the first time on the trek, packed up and out the door at 5:50.  Mark also up.  I did the wake-up routine for the upper camp, while Mark did the lower camp.  Got the bear-bags down, but the rope snagged on the tree.  Chris climbed up to get it down.  28 degrees, and it felt like it too; I was really cold!  My rain parka was covered with little frozen droplets, confirming it was below freezing.  Our packup was slower as we carefully split out gear for Rick, Chris, Al and Mark.  Our scale broke altogether, about halfway through our pack weighings, so it was harder to divvy up the weight fairly.  I ended up with three tents, about 43 pounds or so, felt heaver than that, or I felt weaker this morning (probably still weary after yesterday’s ascent - and losing 2 hours of sleep last night didn’t help, either).  But it’s only about 5 miles today, and Jackass Pass is a much easier climb, and at a much lower elevation, than Washakie Pass.  Did our circle-up and exercises, then I spent about 10 minutes re-lacing Luke's boots, which (despite the repair job) were separating again, but not badly (yet).

Off to Lonesome Lake on the North Fork Trail at 7:20, under clear blue skies.  The sun lit the trail in areas here and there, which felt good.  I struggled some on the hike, even though it was mostly level trail, but kept up (I was still pretty stiff, even after the stretching routine).  We stopped for breakfast on some sunlit rocks overlooking Lonesome Lake, with a direct view of Pingora Peak (a huge pinnacle across the lake).  This was probably the most spectacular of many fine breakfast views; Pingora Peak is one of the premier climbs in the Wind River Range, and in fact we could hear (but couldn’t see) climbers somewhere on the face.  Mark varied from the usual Philmont Grace and gave a moving grace on the fellowship we had enjoyed.  For some reason, I didn’t have much appetite this morning, but forced myself to eat.  Breakfast was Pop Tarts, mueslix, and cashews, all of which rapidly disappeared; Todd didn’t get much on this morning’s scavenging visit to our crew!  The trail snacks for today were Harvest and fruit bars, and everyone (but me) had to resist eating them immediately.  As we were finishing, a group of "at risk" youth came by with their counselors, heading towards Lizard Head Meadows - we guessed they must have been camped somewhere on the far side of the lake.  After cleanup, everyone insisted on personal "mommy shots" with Pingora in the background.  Then the Scouts dragged me in for a group photo (just them and me) - hope it turns out.

We finally got going around 9:00 am, soon running into a solo hiker coming the other way; he was from Seattle, but had lived in Baltimore as a youth.  We continued up the draw towards Jackass Pass, but it was quickly evident we were on an auxiliary trail - the main trail was up the ridge to our left somewhere.  Some of the adult group dynamics while straightening this out were not good (shame on us), but we ended up on the right trail shortly enough, at an overlook by the (well-named) Arrowhead Lake.  [If this lake was at Philmont, it would be world famous, at least among Scouts!]  This turned out to be the actual pass, at roughly 10,800 feet.  We grabbed a few shots by the almost illegible Shoshone/Bridger boundary marker sign, and continued on; for some reason, the trail changed names at the pass, from the North Fork Trail to the Big Sandy Pass Trail.  Well, regardless of its name, it was a truly terrible trail for the next mile, passing Arrowhead Lake, then on to North Lake; plenty of sharp ups and downs, and lots of cairn-to-cairn hiking.
 
Just before we reached North Lake, we stopped most of the Crew for a packs-off break, and Rick, Chris, Al and Mark broke away for a sprint to the trailhead, and were quickly out of sight.  We followed about 10 minutes later.  Very tiny cairns on the trail here for some reason, but we didn’t have time to repair or improve them, plus we weren't positive this was the best trail anyway.  Burro prints (small horseshoes) and burro crap on both sides of the pass proved that someone had gotten a burro (or maybe a llama or small mule?) over this trail, despite the "no park animals" edict of the National Forestry Service.  We pushed on to North Lake, passing a young adult group with many attractive females heading our way with fishing gear/hiking stuff, forgot to ask where they were from; they said they were heading to Lonesome Lake - if so, they were awfully lightly dressed and had very poor footwear (most were in sandals and sneakers) for the upcoming hike and return.  We just kind of shook our heads at this and kept going.

Lunch for us was around 12:15, after North Lake and within sight (finally) of "good" trail.  Crackers, peanut butter, cheese "Squeezers," dried fruit, and beef jerky.  My appetite was still pretty low, so I ate rather thinly. We were passed by several additional groups heading up towards the pass while we were eating.   On the trail at 12:45, one sharp down, one sharp up, and finally "good trail" very reminiscent of Philmont.  Quickly down to Big Sandy Lake - a just spectacular lake stretching well down the valley.  The trail split as we reached the shoreline, with the Little Sandy Trail cutting to the left; we stayed to the right on the Big Sandy Trail and worked about one fourth of the way down the shoreline before selecting a site (a big sloping meadow) to the right, around 100-150 yards from a bear box.  Elevation 9,750 feet - the first time in several days we’ve been below 10,000 feet.  We had heard from the couple at the Scab Creek Trailhead that bear-boxes had been installed here due to some ongoing problems - this was the first one we had seen on the whole trek.  As usual, the box was half full of trash (a perpetual problem with these things), which I decided I would carry out the next day.  [Amazing that people can carry heavy stuff in, but can’t carry light stuff out.]

The meadow had horse manure everywhere, but we found two decent camping spots, both under small copses of trees, which could handle 3 tents each (all we needed now).  Since this was a popular destination, we went ahead and set up the tents (to "reserve" the sites), then laid out some wet clothes leftover from yesterday’s washings, placed our last remaining food in the bear box, and headed down for a lengthy swim/wade.  [Photos: 1, 2]  Ted and I went swimming, but most of the Scouts just waded (the water was pretty cold, though not as cold as yesterday’s stream at Lizard Head Meadows).  Still bright and sunny, but clouds were building.  I sun-dried myself for awhile, then went up and wrote some diary inside my tent.  [Scouts playing cards at BSL: Photo]  At 5:00, several distant rumbles of thunder announced another coming rainstorm.  Ted, Mike, and the Scouts set up the tarp and put all our gear underneath (the reason why we always bring an oversized tarp in the first place).  We were visited by two young men who were planning to hike over Jackass Pass and climb Pingora the next day - but they had forgotten to bring matches!  We gave them some matches (and some fuel too) so they could cook their dinner.  Matt and Charles handled our dinner around 5:30:  Soup, chicken pasta, and cookies.  Matt also built a fire as we did a group cleanup and organized the site for heavy rain (primarily getting everything back under the tarp and weighing down the stakes with large rocks).  In fact, the rain turned out to be rather moderate - on and off between 6:45 and 7:45, with some strong winds, then faded away.  Matt’s fire stayed alive throughout.

At 8:15, we gathered around the fire, with a fantastic "reverse sunset" reflected against the clouds over the eastern peaks.  I gave a new campfire story "The Lost Dog Mine," which was written up in the first ever Boy’s Life Magazine in 1910 (the guys really liked it).  Ted followed with a ghost story "The Jenkins Cottage."  I ended the night with an impromptu discussion of the elements of leadership (Mike told me later that it "blew him away" - heavy comments indeed from a retired Colonel!)  After some discussion on how long a hike we had tomorrow, we made a group decision to get up at 5:45, because we had not done our usual re-packing job with things still being wet.  That would give us enough time to arrive at the trailhead parking lot by 9:30, which is when Mark and Al were scheduled to arrive with the vans.  Bed at 9:30; lightly overcast with a half-moon.  With Rick on his way to Gannett, and Al and Mark in a hotel somewhere, I have the tent alone tonight, so lots of room.