In the morning we woke up, made breakfast, and packed up once again. We headed south out of Miter Basin, this time following the creek through a narrow canyon. I then decided we should try to cross a saddle and drop down into Lower Soldier Lake. This would save us from losing a lot of elevation following the creek to get to the trail that we wanted to meet that would take us over New Army Pass and back home the next day. But it ended up being a pretty interesting hike over the saddle. Going up was easy, going down wasn’t! We almost cliffed out many times. But we eventually made it and ate lunch at Lower Soldier Lake. Here the ranger stationed at Rock Creek also found us and we had a nice conversation with her.
After lunch we hiked, on a maintained trail for the first time in a couple of days, up to New Army Pass. This is a very steep trail at times and it goes right by Old Army pass and climbs several hundred feet higher than it. By the time we made it to the top my feet were protesting greatly! But we started down the pass with High Lake in sight which would be our campsite that evening. Looking back at New Army Pass I think it’s mislabeled. It’s not a pass, a low spot between two mountains. It’s just a cliff between two mountains! I think it should be called New Army Cliff :p |
