Shayna had yet to actually climb Hermit's Peak. I figured that we could do this pretty easily, but I am coming to the realization that experience is not as important as just doing something all the time. We were really out of shape!

We visited the Dog Bowl and saw that it had not rained too much and the water there was very nasty. Filtered and used it anyway. We only got a mile or so past that before we just were shot and made camp for the night.

I tried out some new equipment (a fleece "sleeping bag" and an emergency bivvy) and realized that I still want to be more of a chalupa than a burrito. I slept out and ended up with very wet feet from condensation and a lack of ventilation. Bad night.

When we got up and packed up, Shayna was having pain in her legs and we decided to take a short-cut back the way we had come a bit and down to Beaver Creek, which was a hike we had done five years ago.

We are trying out loop hikes this year, as opposed to the thru hikes we had done previously.