Day 5
8/20/17
10.3 miles
(63.5 miles total)

Today’s miles came hard. First thing in the morning we crossed a freezing creek.

With blocks of ice for feet we traveled over to the next valley, labeled on our maps as “Sound of Music setting”. Indeed!

It was amazingly beautiful. No trails lead here, but we did see one other pair camped. We then had another, very long pass, Blaurock to go over, to get out of the valley. At one point, the best and most direct way of travel was through/across a wide arcing glacial river plain. It was like being at the beach, at 10,800′!

Blaurock was a long way up, at over 12,600′. Once on top we got a great view of Gannett Peak, the highest in Wyoming at 13,804′. We hope to climb this as a separate trip. So many glaciers!

We had to drop all the way down to a creek, where we suddenly saw tons of people, all in varying stages of climbing Gannett. They were probably confused to see which way we headed off, not towards Gannett, not out any of the common ways in. 
The afternoon was so hard, climbing another pass below West Sentinel Peak. Bubs started to feel sick. We took a half hour break st the pass, and then had to move on, camping options very limited in this terrain. 

Going down, we were supposed to walk across the Gannett Glacier, or what’s left of it. On the maps, we should’ve had a fairly level contour across the glacier before going over a little saddle down to the next valley. But because of how the glacier now exists, we had a long traverse to stay above melted out pockets of snow, followed by a very steep climb. I really wish I’d brought my ice axe. 

Steep again down the other side, we did find a couple of camp spots, but it was only 5:30. Bubs somehow found some reserves of energy and we decided to continue on, slogging up one more climb to high tundra. 

Yay camping at 12,200′!
We are so, so drained. Tomorrow looks like it will also be a tough day, but we have the eclipse to look forward to, yay!!