Annual Juniper Backpack trip

The annual Juniper Wilderness backpack trip is usually a fun filled time: it's on familiar territory, and usually the same core of friends, with a few new ones thrown in each year. This year was no exception. We all had a great time. I suffered a little from the shortness of breath caused by my recent cold, and coughed all through the cold night. Ian suffered worse though, he had brought his lightweight sleeping bag and it turned out to be the first night in the 30's this year.

The hike in was good, and we saw many more other hikers on the trail than last year, which was immediately after a forest fire. This year the ajor trail damage was caused by windstorms. There was an area about a mile long that was constant blowdown of small trees, hundreds of them. It was like trying to hike through pick up sticks. The saddle campground at Hidden Pond was occupied, so we continued on out to the opn campsite by the lake, which I think most of us prefer anyway. There was no drunk naked guy at the Pond this year, but there were at least two other groups camping around the lake. Just as we were setting up our dinners someone called our "Bear" and sure enough a large Black Bear was wandering along the opposite lake shore. It apparently circled all the way around the lake, as someone later saw it while taking a bathroom trip, but it never bothered us.

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