Black Lake

This past weekend I really wanted to go for a backpacking trip so I convinced Kari to go on a "short" hike up behind our house...destination Black lake. So I got off work friday afternoon around 4:30pm, we loaded up our packs for a quick overnighter and took off. We decided to get a quick bite before the hike and finaly hit the trailhead around 8:30pm. The hike was supposed to be about 5.5 miles up the valley or 4 miles over a pass. We got to the junction and Kari made the decision to make the ascent up the pass. We pushed along and made it to the pass. Once at the pass the wind and rain began to push a little, but it wasn't bad...yet. As we walked up the "football" field the wind began to increase to the point that we had to lean into it and really focus to not get blown over. Once we reached the second pass the wind was so strong it was hard to breath. We moved through the pracarious scree field and made it down to Black lake, which is a beautiful lake seated below some massive cliffs. We started setting up camp, which was difficult because of the intense wind and rain, I had to use every guyout point. Our little North Face tent kicked butt! It's poles are rated for wind gusts up to 40mph and is water tight, but we really tested the limits of its construction. In the morning the wind relaxed a little so we broke camp and discovered the poles got bent a little (so we got some strong gusts that were >40MPH. Anyhow the hike out was nice...but a little long. Kari is such a good sport to go along with me on these little adventures.