21 October, 2016 (Cody Hardy)

After another long day of backpacking we finally made it to Lady Lake. Who knew a couple of miles could feel like such a long distance. Today started off with the group splitting up into smaller groups of five at Lower Jackass and heading off thirty minutes apart from each other. My group consisted of Alex, Tyler, Joel, Kolin, and myself. Our group was the first to leave and we had a great time today. Slow and steady we marched on. Everything went fairly smoothly until we reached the top of a steep ridge with what looked like no way down. After an hour of searching, we finally found the route down that we decided to take. Once we reached the bottom it was all laughs and high fives. Again we marched on slowly but surely making it to camp around 2:00 pm. When we arrived at camp we found a note to Jeff from Ryan saying, “He had not seen us since 10:30 am so he was going to go looking for us, and he would be back before dark. We stayed put and began to set up camp. Shortly after that Ryan arrived back at camp. He was both happy and mad to see us. As afternoon turned into evening there was no sign of the other group and the worry level began to increase. Luckily they arrived right before dark and I found out that Nick had gotten sick. I have not had a chance to see how he is doing because he is already in bed, but I hear he is doing better. I hope that is the case. Overall yesterday was one of the best days I have had on ECOEE so far. I can only hope the rest of the week goes just as well!