Lake Wagner

I've been a little lazy about blogging about this one, mostly because I took so many freaking pictures. But now I will finally do it.
On July 5th, me and a bunch of my in-laws went backpacking up to Lake Wagner in Wyoming. It is way up in the mountains. I had never been backpacking before, and I was pretty worried. I did pretty well. I was exhausted and sore.
Here is a link to look at where we were:
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=wagner+lake,+WY&hl=en&ll=42.61198,-110.799866&spn=0.076938,0.128574&sll=41.745074,-111.840804&sspn=0.156,0.257149&t=p&hnear=Wagner+Lake&z=13
The trail began at Cottonwood Lake and it took us about 5 hours to get up to Wagner. We traveled 4.6 miles and went up 2400 feet to get there. Going down is always faster and we made it down in 3 hours. Woo hoo!
And now here's a whole bunch of pictures with some explanations about the trip. Enjoy.

All ready to get going!

Me and Lark. Very smiley since it's the beginning of the hike.

Sheri, Maggie, Eli, Jason, and Lark

Some pretty pink flowers

Hiked from those trees yonder over to here.

Ross by Slide Lake. What a handsome husband.

Whenever we stopped, Todd took off his backpack and laid back to rest. I think he may have even fallen asleep a few times.

Slide Lake was created by a landslide that blocked the river. 

More flowers.

If you look very closely, you can see everyone in our party in this photo. 

Hello, rocky river.

I thought that rock was cool.

This is the half-way point. Holy cow we were all so exhausted.

Eli was so happy that Ross gave him a Starburst. He sure is an awesome 6-year-old to come with us!

Getting ready to go again with only one person turning back. The trail had been really steep, and according to Ross and Jason, who had done the hike before, that wasn't even the bad part.

Todd, Eli, Jason, and Maggie. Ross and Lark left us behind, they were so fast and didn't seem to get tired as easily as the rest of us.

This was the really bad part. And the picture doesn't even do it justice. You can see the trail in the back, then you get to this freaking mountain and just go strait up it. Here Ross is helping Eli. He was so nice to come back and help us.

And all the way over in those far trees is where we're headed. I felt like the trail kept going and going. 

We made it! Wagner Lake!

Ross just had to bring the crappiest tent for us to stay in.

Getting our tin foil dinners going when suddenly, it began pouring hail and rain from the sky.

It rained and hailed for about two hours then stopped. We ate half-cooked tin foil dinners and hung out in our crappy, leaky tent.

Ross was quite excited taht it stopped raining.

We were lucky that Lark brought the small tarp. Otherwise, we would have been quite soaked instead of just damp.

We were all excited to get going the next morning. 

Those freaking cliffs. The clouds can't get over so the dump everything out right onto the lake. And that is why it always rains or snows or hails when someone travels to Lake Wagner. Here's the upper lake.

And here's the lower lake. It sure was beautiful.

The mountains of Wyoming sure are beautiful.

Eli, Jason, Lark, Maggie, Me, Ross, and Todd. We survived!