Our second visitor!

The weekend of July 21-23 we had the joy of having Erik's sister Monika come and visit with us! And what did we do? Of course, we went backpacking! Well, it was over 100 again that weekend and she's from Seattle so we had to get out of the heat a little bit. It sort of worked since where we hiked it was still pretty warm. But we got to pick huckleberries all the way down! I had just seen them at the Farmer's Market in town for $8/lb. and we picked them all for free! There are some pictures on Monika's camera of us enjoying the huckleberry milkshakes so as soon as she send's them I'll update this post.

She arrive early on a Sat morning and we packed up the car and headed out to the Mission Mountain. We travelled about 1 1/2hrs to our trailhead. There were a lot of horse trailers parked at the trailhead and we passed many horse trains on the way. Note: always try to get off the trail on the DOWN side and talk softly so the horses don't get spooked. We hiked in about 5-6 miles that day, mostly uphill and camped at Piper Lake. We were in Wilderness area so there are not any designated campsites so we picked a nice rocky outcropping and pitched our tents there.

Erik napping at the end of the hike:

It got a little smoky the night from some fires burning on the other side of the Missions, but it wasn't too bad. In the morning it was a little hazy. Here's a shot of the campsite (with stuff all over the place!) We swam a couple times right off the rocks there, it was very nice!
On Sunday morning before heading back to our car we hiked up a ridge we could see from our campsite. Here's some pics from the top: Sorry I can't get the pics of Monika and Erik and me and Erik to post. Oh well I'll try another time! Next up Glacier National Park!