Ted bowed out again so it was another trip with just Dale and myself.  This was the first trip where it involved me coming into town from my new home in LA.  Dale and I were torn on where to go.  We had been eyeing Lost Maples but it is known more for the beautiful trees during the fall.  But not knowing if I could make it back during that time, we decided that we would give it a go for a two night trip. 

Not surprisingly, the weather called for rain but we weren't going to let that sway us.  Being summer time, we figured a little rain might help with the heat.  The plan was to head to directly to the park from the airport.  Unfortunately, I showed up to the airport a few minutes late and my bag didn't make it on the plane.  We had to kill a couple of hours while we waited on the bag to show, so I forced Dale to try Veggie Heaven (mmm, Protein 2000!).

We arrived at the park with about an hour before sunset so we headed directly to the camp site.  There were several campsite options that looked good, but since we heard Site C was typically crowded, we ended up heading to Site A, which was a short one mile hike in.  Once we got to the site though, we were very impressed.  There was nobody else around (since it was raining) and we found a nice little cubby hole to put the tent that literally was not visible from ten feet away.  It was also very close to a stream and easy to fetch water.  Along the stream were also several large rock outcrops that were good spots to sit around and smoke cigars.

Unfortunately, once we set up camp and took a few things out of my pack, I realized I left behind my water filter.  So that's me heading back to the car.  I only had a few minutes of light left, so I made the best of it and actually jogged back to the car.  I brought along my flashlight because I knew there was no way I was getting back before the sun was down..  Luckily the path in wasn't too difficult and I made it back without falling into the water or breaking an ankle.

The next morning, we woke to a beautiful day and after some discussion, we decided to move our campsite to the opposite end of the park.  We hiked along the East Trail, which was pretty steep and proved to be a challenge to get up to the top.  The heat only complicated matters and we both worked up a pretty good sweat.  Once we made it to the top though, the views were awesome.  The East Trail ran into Site C, and we were pretty blown away at how beautiful the area turned out to be.  There was a huge pond with high cliffs (that I couldn't resist jumping off of) and tons of waterfalls just off the trail.  I actually used one of the waterfalls to take a shower, which was extremely refreshing.  It's easy to see why this spot is so popular.  We rested along the pond's edge and probably dozed off for a few minutes. 

After our break, we headed towards Campsite G where we intended to stay.  Unfortunately, once we got there, there was no water anywhere to be found.  We hiked several more miles to another site (cooling off in pools along the way), only to find it was dry as well.  We decided to bite the bullet and camp at Site C.  By the time we got back, there were some campers already set up in the prime spot.  And as beautiful as the pond area is, there were only so many places to put a tent... so as much as we hated it, we set up our tent about 100 feet away from the other campers and crashed for the night.  After a solid night's rest, we made the short trip to the car and were on our way home.