After eating a couple PowerBars just for some energy, we packed up and headed down the trail, figuring we'd stop to eat when we got to Frog Lake (a few miles away), since we were pretty much out of water.
We made it all of a few hundred yards down the trail, and Justin decided he'd better filter some water from the outlet creek of one of the lakelets because he didn't have enough to make it to Frog Lake. I'd say the purity of the water was questionable. I watched from the top of a boulder, for no good reason except that it seemed like maybe there were a few less mosquitoes up there...
After the filtering ritual was done, we continued down the trail. The problem was, "down" literally meant "down". I was a bit annoyed that we were dropping in elevation when I knew in a short distance we'd have to start the climb back up over Elephant's Back. As we dropped, we saw some cool rocks on the side of the mountain:
After a bit of dropping, we finally began the climb up Elephant's Back. It was a bit disconcerting that the mountain we were to climb looked pretty big, and the trail didn't seem to go anywhere. But at least the views to the East...
...and to the South...
...were cool. After a while, we could finally see how the trail winded way around a section of the mountain, and then doubled-back on itself to crest the ridge just below the top of the peak. During the climb, we passed a gigantic bird, whose sudden movement scared me a bit (because I didn't see it), and also passed an older gentleman with a bright orange external frame pack that must've weighed a ton, cut-off jeans, and not much else heading the opposite direction. Geez, if he can do it... It didn't take us too many rest breaks before we finally reached the top and could get a view to the NorthWest. (the big lake is Caples Lake, I think...)
After passing the spur trail down to Winnemucca Lake, where I had hiked the previous weekend, we descended somewhat to Frog Lake.
The only problem with Frog Lake was there were a ton of day hikers, since it's so close to Carson Pass, and some of them even had small portable boats. But we relaxed for a while, took a nap, cooked some food, and then continued down the trail...
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