Started out warm and heated up quickly. Mosquitoes were vibrant all day. A day of steep climbs and drops, and a surprisingly difficult ascent to 10,100 Benson Pass. We took a break a mile before the pass, where I promptly removed my socks and left them there for good, on accident. Puts a lot of stress on the remaining pair. Made the pass, tried to send some texts, and thunderheads built up. Dropped into Smedberg Lake basin, which was surrounded by an impressive array of granite towers, including Volunteer Peak. Thunderheads started to thicken and finally opened up on us as we descended to Piute Creek. It rained fast and hard, and the thunder claps echoed off of the bare granite for miles around. Quite impressive. The local fleet of mosquitoes was invigorated by the heat and the rain, and made haste to steal our blood. We ran into t-Rex, rocky, and king street near Piute creek, as they waited out the rain and lunched. We are quickly, then caught up during some stream crossing adventures. A nice slick, barkless pine lay about 5-8 feet above the water, so smiles just walked across. My bag was already waterproofed, so I tried my luck on the log. I made it across, but it had high pucker factor. We then climbed up 1700 feet, in the humid and warming afternoon, grouped back up. The pleasant, damp and earthy smell of a freshly-soaked forest permeated the region. As the sweat commingled with my already wet clothes, I was glad that i hadn't bothered with rain gear for the storm, affording better cooling on the sticky climb. We stopped and chatted at the top of the climb until we realized that with 5.5 miles left to camp, we were running outta daylight. King street and I made base and continued our conversation from earlier all the way into camp, and even saw a bobcat. I set up camp just in time for smiles to get in from the long day, and we eventually got down with some chili and rice for dinner. Delicious.
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