When I first woke up and looked outside I quietly cussed at the sky. It looked like it might rain soon. We quickly had breakfast and were on the move. Thankfully, the skies proved my weather ignorance by clearing off.

We headed back down the east side of the lower Snowball Lake on the route that Helen and I had scouted the night before. There was some bushwhacking involved, but not too much rock hopping. After we cleared the outlet from the last Snowball Lake we crossed the stream and our hearts leapt at seeing a real path in the trees.

The path quickly lost elevation and lowered us into Princess Lake. There looked to be a bunch of great tent sites here and we toured the west side of the lake before locating the proper trail that headed off down hill toward Huckleberry Lake.

Once at Huckleberry, the route braided out into a mess of cairns through the rocky moraine. We followed the route as best as we could, but stopped often to sample the ripe raspberries growing in the rocks. Beyond the lake the trail grew more definitive and suddenly we reached the shore of Mystic Lake. Taking a long break, we soaked our feet in the warm water by Huckleberry Creek and I dunked my head into the water, holding it down and letting all the stress of the rocks and off-trail navigation float away.

I was amazed at how quickly my mind shutoff now that we were on a solid path and my feet fell into their old trail rhythm. Helen and I continued a conversation we'd had last year about the meditative side of walking as our feet enjoyed the soft give of the dirt.

We started passing day hikers and fishermen after not seeing anyone all morning. As we passed the dam and neared the trailhead my feet began to walk with a new beat: "Cold. . .Beer. . .Cold. . .Beer". Driving back to Columbus we formulated a plan for the next 3 days and raided an IGA in Big Timber as we headed toward the Lake Plateau.