We stopped a few times to take more videos for our upcoming music video. One of the lines in the song referred to "I keep falling down. I keep hitting the ground. I always get up now to see what's next." We decided to focus on those lines at one particular viewpoint, filming each other walking along then pretending to fall down and getting up again. I actually managed to hurt myself a bit in one of my fake falls, which begs the question about whether it was really fake or not if you actually hurt yourself while doing it? The problem with the video was that it looked like a fake fall.
Falling down, getting back up again.... Music video gold! =)
Our first lunch break stop was at Shadow Lake. We both dipped our feet in the water, then I got an idea to film a rock being dropped into the water. Splash! If it's cut just right, maybe it'll look like someone "fell down". So I set up my camera on the shoreline then had Karolina throw a rock in front of it. Unfortunately, she threw it a little too close to me and wound up splashing both me and the camera. "Not that close!" Water and cameras just do not mix well....
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| Dipping our feet in Shadow Lake. Karolina has the pretty toenails. Mine are unadorned. *nodding* |
I tried turning my camera off and back on, but the shutter had stopped working. I pulled out the batteries and SD card and placed the camera in the sun hoping it would dry quickly and start working again.
A few minutes later, I looked in the water and noticed a snake slithering through the water. "Snake! Snake!" I cried to Karolina, pointing to the water. "I told you there were snakes out here!" She had asked earlier in the trip if there would be snakes along the trail, and I gave her a definite yes, although qualified it that she wouldn't find the more venomous varieties such as rattlesnakes at these elevations. Usually just smaller, non-venomous snakes around these parts. It was our first (and as it turned out, only) snake sighting on the trail.
Our feet were just in that water! We had been soaking our feet in snake infested waters! It sounds more cool to say the water was "snake infested." =) We needed some photos of it, though. And video! But sadly, my camera was still out of commission, resting in pieces in the sun. Karolina lept up with her camera and started taking photos. Unfortunately, her camera couldn't do videos so we got no videos of the snake slithering through the water.
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| We're so macho, we soaked our feet in these snake-infested waters. |
I was actually a little surprised to see the snake in the water at all. I know that water was ice cold. Snakes are cold-blooded creatures. How can it survive swimming in such cold water?! I'd have thought they would have preferred the warmth of the ground than the ice cold water.
Anyway.... After an hour or so, we continued on our way. I put my camera back together to see if it would work, and much to my happiness, it appeared to be working again. Yes!
An hour later, we took another extended break by Gladys Lake where Karolina waded into the water yet again. "You know these are snake infested waters, right?" I asked her. She didn't care, though. She wasn't going to let snakes or ice cold water slow her down!
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| Karolina wading around in Gladys Lake |
We continued our trek. Karolina was feeling strong and wanted to push beyond Trinity Lakes, so that's what we did. Tomorrow we intended to go into Mammoth Lakes to resupply and the further we made it today, the less we had to do tomorrow, and the earlier we'd get into town and the more time we'd have to get all of our town chores done. I was all for getting into Mammoth Lakes as early in the day as possible, so the further along the trail we were, the better.
Near the end of the day, the trail descended steadily and rapidly as it approached civilization. We weren't in civilization, but the trail was heading towards it. Karolina wanted to go skinny dipping again, but much to my disappointment, we didn't find a campsite near a good pool of water. Karolina was probably disappointed too. Oh, well....
The campsite we selected wasn't a great location. It was deep in a thick forest of trees with lots of other people camped nearby. We did have a nice stream nearby to get water, though. Karolina waded into that water--she couldn't help herself!--and later came out with a blood-covered toe. She must have stubbed it on something in the water, but the water was so cold and her feet so numb, she didn't feel it. She had no idea anything was wrong with her toe until she saw the blood oozing out from it after getting out of the water.
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| Karolina hurt her toe while wading around in the creek near our campsite. |
As sunset approached, the mosquitoes came out in force. They hadn't been a problem on the trip so far, but tonight we were camped at about 8,500 feet above sea level--nearly 2,000 feet lower than the last couple of nights. We decided that we should try camping at higher elevations in the future where the mosquitoes seemed to be less of an issue, although maybe it was this particular spot rather than the low elevation.
In any case, neither of us were happy about the mosquitoes, although they eventually went away later in the evening as temperatures dropped. It was the end of another fine day!
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| Garnet Lake |
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| Garnet Lake |
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| Garnet Lake |
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| I couldn't stop taking photos of Garnet Lake! |
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| Okay, last Garnet Lake photo! I promise! =) |
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| Karolina points out the sights. |
I did twist an ankle in the afternoon which caused me to limp for a bit. Just a small sprain, though! After about 15 minutes, I was back to my normal gait!
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| Shadow Lake |
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| Rosalie Lake |
Karolina didn't know I was filming her when I took this video of her stretching on the shores of Gladys Lake. I thought maybe I could use a segment later in our music video! =)
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| Trinity Lake |
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| The mosquitoes in camp were awful! |
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