Tuesday, October 15, 2024 The morning of day two was bitter and frosty. Weather reports were expecting high 20’s and low 30’s for the night. We took it easy and enjoyed our warm oatmeal and hot coffee by the lake as the sun started to come out from the thinning clouds. We didn’t hit the trail until around 10am with the goal of making it at least to Horseshoe Lake, if not all the way to North Wilder Lake. We quickly found out that today made for much slower hiking. A lot more technical walking, ups and downs and careful foot placement. Between Path Lake and Rock of Ages Lake we had to navigate some downed trees on the trail that looked relatively fresh, as well as a very large trunked tree that looked like a recent fall. Despite that extra work the trail around Rock of Ages Lake was beautiful and well worth the extra trouble. With our progress much slower than we expected, we decided that we would indeed camp at Horseshoe Lake for the night and had beautiful sunshine that evening to set out our wet tent and other gear to get completely dried out. It was a beautiful night and wished we could have had a campfire, but with the fire restrictions in place we settled for setting our sleeping bags up by the water with hot water bottles to watch the stars for a short time before we turned in for the night.