5040 Hike – Aug.15, 2020

–submitted by Sherry Durnford

The 5040 hike of July 11 took place on Aug. 15 as snow levels and visibility were still an issue on July11.   This hike was appended to Matt Lettington’s hike up 5040 and 7 people came along.  It was a beautiful warm day so we started early, meeting at 6:30 am with 2 people coming up from Maple Bay (a VERY early start).

The coordinator, Sherry, was sweep and the reluctant hiker, Peter, was lead.  This worked well until Holly realized that Peter was waiting too long for Sherry to catch up on the way down and took the lead.   One and ¼ hours got the group to Cobalt Lake and about ½ hour further got us to the cabin.  It was occupied but closed for visitors.  We had snacks and the 4 am starters from Maple Bay decided to enjoy views from the cabin porch while the rest of us trudged to the top.  By noon, we met the other Island Mountain Rambler group led by Matt Lettington and had nice chats about flying ants, bugs in general, and how to fine tune trip participant levels.

On the way down, Holly took the lead with a good pace and we congregated at Cobalt Lake for swims, dips, and water refills.   The rest was a slow but steady descent through trees, roots, and rock to the cars.  All were down by 3:30, thankful that we’d gotten an early start on a very warm day.

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