July 2, 2022

I stayed in bed this morning until the sun hit the tent, at 7:00. Eleven hours in there! Mosquitos are still swarming—as soon as it warms up they get busy feeding. I ate breakfast (oatmeal, dried fruit, a few nuts. I love a good cup of tea!), and Emily and I packed snacks, some miso and the stove for a hike around the lake.

This place is like a well-manicured park, but with only faint trails to follow some of the time, around the western edge. I worry about stepping on too many wildflowers, which are abundantly strewn everywhere I look. I try hopping from rock to rock, but I’m afraid some flowers were crushed by the steamroller that is me. The weather is cool and sunny. Perfect for a walk.

We stopped to spend a little time by one of the streams rushing into the west side of the lake. COLD! Emily put her face in the water, just for the shock of it, so I had to, too. It made my sinuses ache at my third eye.

It’s about 4.7 miles around the lake. We stopped at a little sandy beach on the uninhabited part of the lake (which is really about 80% of it) to strip and get in the water a little. Too cold for actual swimming (for either of us), but it felt great! The skin feels so alive and tingly. We stopped a little later at a beautiful secluded, perfect campsite (next time, this is where I will head), and fixed cups of hot miso while we sheltered from the breeze and enjoyed the sun. I wish I had thought to take a photo of this perfect spot.

We were back at camp @2:00 for an early dinner, followed by a siesta. But the wind had picked up dramatically, until it was howling and blowing sand in the tents. We decided to pack up and head to Garnet Lake to find more shelter.

Garnet Lake is where I lost Betty, not Thousand Island! All the puzzle pieces of my memory have been correctly assembled now. But I realize I could have just gone back and read my blog entry from 2014:

Day 5, August 17, 2014

Now, at 5:00 PM, we have a very good, more sheltered camp. I am so tired. My body really feels its age and I trudge up the trail. I need a rest. Tomorrow. Phone says 7.8 miles today. There are many fewer mosquitos down here, and many fewer people for them to feast upon. This camp is in a little clearing among trees, a long mile from the JMT. The kind of place you have to want to go to, rather than a convenient stop on the way to somewhere else. In 2014, I had the best swim of our hike in Garnet Lake, but this year (1.5 months earlier), it’s too cold for me to really enjoy it.

7:30 PM: It got really cold when the sun disappeared. Since we are 1500 feet lower in elevation than Thousand Island Lake, I’m guessing it’s much colder up there. I’m in my sleeping bag already, and after some writing and reading, I think I’m in for an early bedtime. I’m working on a song. Here’s the first verse and chorus:

This gritty city’s so full of noise, you can barely hear the robins sing / This cracked and dirty pavement, boys, it punishes my knees / At night the lights obliterate the stars / the shadows are fractured by headlights of cars / and I wonder how I got here, and will I ever leave?

But when I close my eyes I see the mountains rise around me / stark and wild above the timberline / And I find my place when that immensity of space surrounds me / One tiny spark in the forever flame of time

We shall see how it progresses from here (or not).