Big Lake Youth Camp to Rock pile Lake
19.3 miles
That was hard! I am exhausted. We are camped at Rock pile Lake and amazingly the lake still has ice on the far side. This is really a beautiful place and I am glad we pushed on in order to camp here. We likely crossed more snow today then the nobo class of 2007 will see on the entire trail. The mosquitoes were awful much of the day.
During my thru-hike I thought of Liz each day and remember how much I missed her. Today was similar and I am missing her still, but realizing she has completely moved on certainly changes things. I have all kinds of options for my future but it is really hard getting my head around that.
I forgot to mention that I actively participated in hike naked day last week. I am pretty self conscious about stuff like this so it was a Big Deal for go-BIG. The mosquitoes were so bad that we stripped quickly, threw on our packs, swatted the evil ones from our asses and “other” body parts, and quickly shot a photo. Sean (Scout and Frodo’s son) had the best one liner when he said: I have to get dressed to say good bye to his parents” who were going north while we were going south. But once we headed up Glen Pass he was happily striding up the pass completely nude (less shoes and socks) to the great enjoyment of two nobo female thru-hikers. One of the best parts of hike naked day was learning that Frodo only agreed to participate if I did and she knew for certain that I would not and thus she was safe….times are a changing.
Big Lake Youth Camp turned out to be a really cool place. The camp is a Seventh Day Adventist camp with a 100% vegetarian diet. The food was great. We were invited to their camp fire program which turned out to be a “revival” meeting for young people. Thunder describes it as “happy clappy” and he retreated faster than a hungry thru-hiker on his way to a all you can eat buffet. Sunny, Tadpole, and I took much of it in. Certainly not my thing and when they started handing out “Jesus gems” my cynicism kicked in – But they were truly great people having a good time and treated us very nicely.
Thunder just gave me a couple of vitamin I; needed as I hurt all over.
Robert Francisco 
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