Hiking = death!!

Okay, maybe that is a little overdramatic. Last night, we prepared by making sandwiches and packing our backpacks with water and snacks and raingear, etc. I was told that we would leave at 8:15am so I thought okay, I'll get up at 7:30. At 6:40 my dad came in and said nope! We're leaving at 7:15 instead. Great. So I woke up in a wonderful mood (that was sarcastic). I insisted on doing my hair and a little makeup because I knew we were going to take lots of pictures (which we did) but I was still ready on time. Too bad everyone else wasn't. We didn't actually make it to the trail until about 8:30am. Going on the hike was my parents, me and Daniel, Ed Cylwik, his sons Scott (23) and Eric (21), and Ed's niece and nephew Kelly (18) and Brian (21). All of the Cylwiks have been up here so are used to the altitude. They took a very brisk pace the first 1/2 mile, so my Mom decided that she wasn't up to the hike and went back to the cabin. The rest of us suffered through a rigorous hike. It was 3 miles, 950 feet elevation gain. Except we decided to save time so we would take the Forest Service trail which cuts about 25 minutes. And that means it's much steeper than the normal trail. So we got up to Loch Vale in about 90 minutes. I was very out of breath and I had blisters on both my heels, but I made it. The Cylwiks decided to continue another 2 miles (and another 1000 feet elevation gain) to Sky Pond. We stayed at Loch Vale and Daniel and my Dad went fishing while I napped on a relatively comfortable rock. After an hour or so of being eaten alive by bugs and catching nothing, we decided to move on to Mills Lake. This was .8 miles down the trail, and then .6 miles back up in a different direction. My blisters were seriously hurting at this point, but I thought as long as we're going downhill I will be okay. So we went to Mills Lake which was absolutely gorgeous. It was nice to spend some time with Daniel and my Dad and just be up in the mountains. Except for the bugs and the sunburn and the blisters and the sore muscles, it was a wonderful day. Overall, we hiked about 8 miles at an average of 11,000 ft. elevation. We got home at about 4:30, so it was a long day. But I got a lot of good exercise. Now my nose is seriously sunburnt and my arms too and my muscles are really hurting (especialy the gluteus maximus ones hah). Here's some of my favorite pictures: