Lakes and stuff

Day 10 6/22
Mileage 4

Today, we had a wonderfully relaxed morning by the lake and began hiking. This forest is wonderful. Tall firs abound. We made relaxed progress and had lunch in a nice shady spot (because it was sunny!). It's nice to be hiking with people I know. The dynamic is great, and I think it will work well. We found a tent site next to Janus lake. It's a small mound of dirt in a pile of snow. There's a little trickling of snowmelt next to our mound, with a little pool large enough for ice baths. Very nice.

We had a bunch of down time, and since it never gets dark in Washington, we had plenty of time to sit and look at stuff. I've never really noticed how still the forest is. It's so alive, with so much going on at every level, but so eerily immobile at the same time. The others are hoping to ease into it, so our mileage will be relaxed for the next couple days. That's perfect for me, since I need time to recover from last week. We're going to hike north for a couple days, then hike back, to give the snow south of here time to melt a little. I didn't wear my knee brace today, and the knee was not bad. I want to give the back of the knee time to heal from the chafing from the knee brace. I bled through two layers of clothing on my 26-mile day, and it hurts a bit to have anything touching the knee there. I can feel myself getting stronger, though. Little by little, my cuts are healing, my legs are getting more limber, and I feel good.