Over 10,000 ft

We did the Brighton Lakes loop hike this weekend. We didn't have a ton of time left on Saturday after driving back up from Eureka and getting everything packed up for backpacking. We did make about 5 miles up to the last lake and found a nice place to camp. It was really nice except for the droves of mosquitos. I thought I was going to go crazy with the humming and the biting. Of course we planned really well by leaving the DEET in the truck. I only had Badger Balm bug off and it didn't work so well against the droves. We pitched the tent and got water in a hurry then rested behind the netting until dusk slowed them down.

We have been playing around with different meals on our trips as I am not a huge fan of Mountain House meals. I had a bad experience with them at the beginning of my thru-hike and have avoided them almost ever since. I was eating a lasagna and the vegetables tasted moldy, what a turn off. I have tasted some since and haven't had this issue come up so it might have just been a bad batch. My boyfriend doesn't care for the Lipton Noodle or Rice sides that I eat so we are trying to find common ground. It might just be that we each eat what we can and enjoy each other's company instead. We ate asian noodles this trip and while we both thought they were okay, they weren't okay enough for us to keep going back to them. We will have to keep looking, but I am starting to think that dehydrating our own meals might be the way to go.

The first day we had a fair amount of elevation gain and I was really feeling it towards the end, but we pushed on to the top lake and had a great evening with great views as seen through bug netting. The following morning left the option of making a run for one summit then heading back down the way we had come or pushing for the summit and finishing the loop. I decided I was up for the loop so onward and upward we went. It was my first time hiking up over 6,000 ft. Mt. Washington was the highest I had ever hiked. Sad but true.

It was absolutely breath taking, and the views were stunning too. I wasn't so bad off, but we did have to take frequent breaks. There were still some patches of snow and we ended up having a snow ball fight started by me. I was surprised it was perfect snow ball snow, sticky enough to hold together. I ended up on the lower ground and got some snow kicked at me. But it was fun none the less. I'm glad I decided to push for the summit. It was a hard climb up but well worth it.