We woke up leisurely on Friday morning after not the most fitful sleep. It’s funny how sounds carry in the high country – the breeze on the lake water caused it to lap against the shoreline, and to us in our tent it sounded a lot like a large animal lapping up water from a dish, even from 30 yards away. Jane had a hard time getting to sleep, convinced she’d soon have an encounter with a bear. Despite our three bear canisters which should have offered plenty of space for toiletries and trash, we found very little room for such things and ended up hanging the extra smellables as high in nearby trees as we could reach, and this added to Jane’s anxiety. Of course, we had no such visitors, and the hanging items were untouched even by bugs or squirrels. We rose gradually through the morning, each getting our coffee and nibbling on light breakfast fare – Jane had threatened to make a giant breakfast with the eggs and dehydrated hash browns she’d brought, but we decided to wander about first and cook her grand meal a little later. Carter had woken up too late to cast for the several hundred fish Chris had seen jumping on the lake’s surface earlier, and he didn’t have much luck on bigger fish near our camp later in the morning – he decided we needed to find some deeper water, so we gathered some snacks together and began to wander westward along the lake shore. There was a use trail of sorts leading beyond our camp, a multi-braided track that sometimes kept to the higher ground away from the water and sometimes went down along its edge. Carter threw in casts all along the northwestern shore and caught a few smaller fish but none of the size he considered pan-worthy. Eventually, we scrambled up past a wonderful, large campsite and down a steep hillside to reach the sandy beach at the westernmost end of the lake – a cascade was visible above on Lake #4’s inlet creek, but Carter’s focus was on the fish and we continued southward across the grassy flats adjacent to the beach. As we crossed the inlet creek, some motion in the water caught Chris’ eye – there were a couple of dozen small trout schooling around in the shallow creek, not more than six inches deep, and they kept darting back and forth as we each came and looked at them from the bank above. We soon made our way to some rocks extending out from the shore to deeper water – this was Carter’s ticket, and he proceeded to settle in for a protracted stay. This was Chris’ cue to explore the slabs leading higher up the slope to the south – from camp, we had seen this ramp system leading about halfway up the canyon wall and had talked about possibly using this for a cross-country route to visit other lakes higher up in the basin. The slabs were steep in places but not too slick, and Chris found himself about 200′ above the water within about 5 minutes’ time. The elevated view was wonderful – the deep blue-green of the lake contrasting with the rust-colored rock in the shallows and the white and gray granite all round was the perfect high country picture. After a bit, Chris descended and we all proceeded to continue our circumnavigation – eastward up the shoreline was a short peninsula, and Carter fished here some more before we moved further east to the base of a jumble of boulders left at the bottom of another rocky drainage higher up. On the other side of the boulders was a brushy thicket, head-high with foliage – the route along the water looked sketchy to Chris, so he urged Jane to take the high route with him through some narrow openings in the flora. Ten minutes of tedious footing and loud cursing brought us out into the open, about the same time Dani and Carter appeared below, having taken the much easier path along the water – doh! Beyond the brush was more open forest, and the path was easily followed from here as we made our way north and west to complete the loop back at camp. Jane had been hoping for a fish lunch, but she broke out her breakfast goodies instead – she had packed her fresh eggs in a partial egg carton wrapped with insulation she’d cut from a freezer bag, and they were in perfect shape. Add a little oil, salt and pepper, the hash browns with bacon bits, and fried eggs, and we had a skillet meal fit for a big gathering at home – it was certainly not something Chris had seen in the backcountry since Boy Scout camp-outs many, many moons ago. The big lunch hit the spot, and we all took a break to refill water, change into lighter clothes (it was quite warm by this time), and rest a bit before heading out again for the afternoon’s excursion.