bromley shelter to little rock pond shelter

miles: 17.7

woke up with the birds. nice dry cool night. packed everything up and walked down to the shelter. “gumby” was all packed and ready to go. layla and bria were only just stirring. oatmeal and coffee. remembered to put some dried mango in this morning. so much better.

my clean socks completely dried overnight. the spin cycle worked a treat. dry feet at least for a few miles.

i set off up bromley mountain and shortly was hiking up one of the ski runs on the way to the summit.

the view at the top was somewhat surreal. i’ve only ever really seen all the ski lift machinery during the skiing season. it looked like some sort of post-apocalyptic landscape all overgrown.

hiked down the back side of bromley and caught up with “gumby” just before mad tom notch road where there is a parking lot. crossed the road and headed up styles mountain. it was a completely different mountain. where bromley had been a gradual climb in deciduous forest, styles was a fir forest again. the top wasn’t bare, but it afforded a view looking east, sheltered from the wind. i decided to have second breakfast.

efficiency tip. don’t eat avocado first, otherwise you have to dig into your pack to get your trash bag.

the climb down from styles was steep at first, but then leveled out considerably. a few miles on i arrived at peru peak shelter, where i was pleased to see someone had scraped “black lives matter” into the shelter with a charcoaled stick.

i another .4 miles and i arrived at griffin lake, where i had a nice camp spot to myself. i took off my shoes and socks and soaked my feet in the lake. salamanders came to investigate my feet, and then hid underneath them.

after third breakfast i filtered some water and headed into the big branch wilderness and up baker mountain. again, the hike up was totally different than the other two. this one started as fir forest, but then turned into huge granite slabs. the view from the top was a bit overgrown, but the wind wasn’t strong, so i stayed for lunch. just as i was thinking of packing up, “gumby” caught up with me.

i headed down the other side and had a nice gradual descent to big branch, where the trail crossed a river. i decided to stop for a swim.

i sunned myself on a rock and when i was dry, continued out of the big branch wilderness.

the trail joined a dirt road for a bit before turning at a parking lot that was surprisingly full.

a gradual 2 mile ascent brought me to tonight’s shelter. the shelter was deserted, but there were numerous campers, many with kids. the lake is spectacular. a trail goes around the lake and there is a huge rock on the opposite side that folks can jump from. it’s quite spectacular . . . except for the jackass blasting a bluetooth speaker across the lake, and i shit you not, it’s the “blow up your teevee” song. :facepalm:

it took me a minute to figure out a camping spot. guthook told me that there was “overflow” camping on the north side of the lake, so i hiked the .3 miles only to find that they were all roped off. i hiked back the .3 and chatted up some folks who told me where there was some. there was literally one spot left and it was gravel. not ideal, but it will do.

sadly it looks like “gumby”, layla, and bria aren’t going to make it here.

some additional shots from today.