Bull Run Lake Backpack Boen Edition

 We'd planned a trip for the weekend of Sep 23-24th, but a bout of bad air arrived from Northern California and Oregon, breaking up what was until then a relatively smoke free summer. Purple Air indicated relatively good air quality near bear valley, so we reprised Carson Iceberg Wilderness, a trip that we'd done in 2017 with Bowen, but now with Boen. Back then, we'd done it as a 3 day/2 night trip, but we had only one night this time.

Air Quality at the trailhead was excellent, but we promptly got lost and ended up having to do a cross country hike to get back to the trail. The one time I'd not setup a route on my GPS of course, was the one time we had routefinding problems.

It was relatively cool, but once we'd pitched the tend and walked out to the lakeside I found that I had the courage to at least attempt to swim.

I got in, swam a few strokes, and got back out --- it was pretty cold! Arturo got in long enough to persuade Boen to get in, but after that he got out pretty quick as well. We gathered some firewood and then had dinner. Smoke came in, and gave the place a hazy air, but the portable air quality monitor never gave us a reading worse than "fresh."

We had dinner early, and then started a fire for marshmallows. I didn't realize that Boen had never roasted Marshmallows or had smores before, and that this was a new experience for him! I don't make campfires when I go camping, and the places I tend to go to don't allow them most of the time anyway, but Arturo told me that this was the first trip he'd done this year where campfires were permitted!

The night was forecast to be cold, close to freezing, but it was very comfortable at 8:00pm when Boen had had enough of Marshmallows and we brushed our teeth, and we went and did a bit of stargazing. Getting into our tent, Boen didn't read for long before going to sleep in the zero degree bag and freshly purchased Nemo Tensor Ultralight pad, which was now upgraded to R4.2 for 2023.

We all slept well, and I got out of the tent and made coffee the next morning in good spirits. The air was even clearer and cleaner this morning, and surprisingly warm. Arturo noted that his thermometer read 37F instead of the anticipated 33F, but I pointed out that he had kept his backpack in the vestibule of the tent. The air was bone dry, as was the tent, which was very much welcome when it came to packing things up.

We set off in the shade and made good time --- it's much harder to get lost on the trail from this direction, and it's also a lot easier going.

Boen was a lot stronger than his brother was, and despite blisters patched up with compeed the day before made good time with next to no whining. By the time we got to mosquito lakes we were wondering how the heck we had gotten lost the day before. As we approached the car Arturo pointed it out --- there was a sign that pointed in the wrong direction!

Air Quality was reasonable all the way home. It's the kind of thing you take for granted when you have it, but when you don't you're conscious all the time that the days when humanity can go outdoors and go camping may very well be limited!