Got up at 5.45 am, 28 degrees, cold!  Light breeze, broken clouds.  Packed up and out by 5.55 am  Did the wake up routine just before 6:00, then handled the bear bags.  Hugh, Thomas, and Mark came up to carry bags, while I coiled the ropes.  Everyone moving much better this morning, and we were nearly complete by 6.30 am.  Did a total pack weighing ("estimating" with the needleless scale), and did some adjusting.  The top people were around 46 pounds or so, about 4 pounds better than yesterday.  One nice thing about this type of trek versus Philmont is that the average pack-weight goes down every single day.  On the trail at 6.55 am, after stretching and camelling up.  9 miles to go today, so even slightly lighter packs were appreciated.  We spread out for the brief climb up the ridge (to avoid making a new trail), and reassembled on a sunlit section of the Old Highline/Fremont trail to suck up some heat.  On our way in short order:  rolling trail, fortunately not nearly as dusty as the previous 2 days.  As we passed Cross Lake, we were glad we hadn’t pushed on to here yesterday afternoon - the ground sloped very gently down to the lake, but there was virtually no cover from the wind.  It would not have been a fun campsite if there had been any wind at all, as cold as it got last night.

At 7.30 am, we broke for breakfast on a rock ledge to the left of the trail, also sunlit, with an excellent view of the facing peaks we had been approaching the previous two days.  Breakfast was bagels (our last fresh food for the trek), with peanut butter, cheddar chees "Squeezers," and raisins; Pilot crackers and gorp were given out as trail snacks.  On the road again at 8.15 am, passing through and by some spectacular alpine meadows.  The sky cleared up to nearly cloudless again and it was seemingly fairly hot - until the sun was blocked or the wind picked up, at which point you felt the underlying chill.  After one long climb - 11.30 am or so - we crested a ridge with a great view of both the Continental Divide range and also the southeast face of Mount Geikie (which had a small snowfield on top).  Great photo ops enjoyed by all.  [Photos: 1, 2]  Ted and Al pumped water at a small pond in the saddle.  We took 45 minutes in all at this stop.

Continuing on at last, we descended rather sharply into a beautiful bowl with a pretty good sized stream running through it.  Just barely deep enough to be a concern on dunking our boots, so we spread out to find a good crossing; in fact, we ended up discovering and using about four different spots.  Mostly dry feet, only Rick and Luke got one semi-wet boot apiece.  Short rise and we stopped for lunch, nice view of the backside of Mt. Geikie, plus the meadow we had just crossed was laid out to our left front.  We took a fairly long lunch here - Ritz crackers, ham and chicken spread, beef jerky, and dried fruit.  We also enjoyed a chat with the 4 members of a small cavalcade of horses and mules that came through; they were from Duboise.  One woman riding - three men on foot leading the mules and horses down into the meadow.  I didn’t think to ask where they were going.

Luke’s new Vasque boots were showing signs of separating along the sole, but they looked OK for now.  We left around 1.30 pm.  Somehow, we missed the Shadow Lake Trail intersect, and continued heading south to Marm’s Lake instead; to tell the truth, I don’t think there was a trail intersection, because we had all been expecting and looking for it.  Another "disappearing trail" I guess.  Passed a small pond with 2 ducks which "exploded" off the water and flew right over Chris; unfortunately, I couldn’t get my camera out fast enough to get the shot.  More up and down to Marm’s Lake, where a trail sign confirmed our mistake.  Fortunately, the Pyramid Lake Trail intersected the Old Highline/Fremont Trail at Marm’s Lake, so left turn, Clyde.  Very hard uphill in the heat of the day; we caterpillared all the way without a break.

Once at the top, we soon passed the Shadow Lake Trail (cutting to the right), then intersected the short connector trail we should have come up on in the first place (coming in from the left) 5 minutes later.  Well, it certainly looked obvious enough on this end!  There was no lake at this intersection, but a little later we crossed a nice stream (Washakie Creek), which connected 2 small ponds on either side of the trail - with lots of trout jumping in each.  It was already 4:00 pm at this point, and beginning to cloud up pretty good (for the first time on this trek), so we decided to park it here for the night rather than pushing on to Skull Lake or Mae’s Lake.  With the extra mileage doing the dogleg to Marm’s Lake, not going to Mae’s Lake pretty much worked out as a wash.  We found a reasonably flat area on the far side of the eastern (higher) pond, elevation about 10,100 feet, with a small rise protecting it from the wind.  We circled up for water - everyone was just about out at this point, and we polished off all we had left, then got right into camp setup.  Mike and Sam handled dinner, with assistance from Mark.  Chris took a crew for the bear bags (they had to go quite a ways up a hill on the far side of the trail to find a decent spot - too few trees here in the flat), while Charles handled water and Matt and I set up tents.  Pretty good organization, and everything got done quickly and efficiently - but sudden disaster struck when Matt and I started in on Al’s tent - he had apparently left one of his fiberglass rib poles at Raid Lake.  No way any of us could go back and retrieve it now.  After playing with various possibilities (primarily fishing poles - no go on that!), we managed to do a pretty fair jury-rigging with Al’s two Leki trekking poles and a spare end-extender pole from one of the Eureka Timberlites.  Mark took a few photos for posterity, while Al verbally and mentally beat himself to a bloody pulp, multiple times.

Dinner was Ramen noodles, followed by a "unique" beef TVP-potato-vegetable stew, bug juice, and blueberry cheesecake for dessert.  With the stock of leftover dehydrated apples building up, Ted tried slipping them into the stew, figuring that no one would notice.  Not!  Charles was the first of many to detect the subterfuge; very few of us were enthused about the addition.  Ted found it harder and harder to give away all of the apple chips as the week went on.  After dinner, we held a group discussion on tackling Washakie Pass the following morning.  Basically: Get up at 5.30, pack 3 liters of water, pack as much as possible tonight to ensure a quick getaway in the morning.  Also turn in all smellables for the bear-bags before leaving to do anything else after dinner.  Mike and I handled post-dinner cleanup.  Another group of horses passed us, going south - 8 horses with 2 wranglers watching over them - we guessed they were probably going to Big Sandy Lodge, since that was the only trailhead in that direction.  Al and Thomas headed down to try their luck with the fish (excellent).  Everyone else washed clothes and hung out.  Unfortunately, the mosquitoes and the little "biter" flies were pretty ferocious whenever the wind faded.  Well, that was probably why the fishing was so good!  Some of us fought back with insect repellent, while others just put on a full set of longs (rain suits).

A couple of guys from a small camp several hundred feet away came down to the "fishing" pond to chat for awhile - turned out they were doing some llama packing (I don’t know if anyone went over to check the llamas out).  Ted and I went swimming again - very cold water!  I did a brief drip-dry, but the mosquitoes forced me to do a rather hurried toweling off instead - and the towel was as much for swatting as for drying!  As sunset approached, we could see rain far to the east through the mountain passes, which were soon lit up in a glorious Alpenglow as the sun ducked below the cloudline to the west.  I’m tenting with Rick tonight.  In a Klassic Keystone Kampers routine, everyone (including Rick and I) were "diving" into their tents and frantically zipping them shut to keep the mosquitoes and "biter" flies at bay (successfully, at least in our tent).

Our neighbors visited us in camp from 8.45 to 9.05, talking with Ted, Mark, Al, and some of the Scouts who were still up and about yet.  Adam from West Virginia, had been here for five years, now working for the Forest Service.  He had worked at Big Sandy Lodge, putting himself through the University of Wyoming.  Now doing fish surveys (specifically, monitoring sheep damage to banks and streams, and the resulting effects on the fish).  His crew consisted of 3 guys and 2 llamas - one of the llamas was apparently very lazy.  Nice sunset, with a thin sliver of a moon to set it off.  After writing diary for a few minutes, bed for me at 9:10.  At 10:00 pm, we were visited by Michele and Laura, who had set up camp down at the lower pond across the trail; Michele was a camper, and Laura a counselor from Eugene, Oregon, taking a 2 week long wilderness trek with the Skinner Brothers Outdoor Wilderness Training camp out of Pinedale, Wyoming.  One week with packhorses, and one week backpacking (sounds interesting; I’ll have to look these guys up).