When we headed out in the morning we were good to go except Meredith had forgotten her skort so Scott loaned her a pair of boxers which looked like they worked just fine. It was cooler than it has been and we enjoyed the perfect hiking and running temperatures. Like on Helens we ran where the terrain allowed for it and walked the uphills and dicier sections. Around 4 1/2 hours into the adventure we stopped to fill water at a beautiful stream. Rich and I headed out from the break a little early to keep our legs from stiffening. We walked instead of ran and took lots of photos thinking Meredith and Scott would catch up with us quite soon. But they didn't. We looked at the map and decided they might have missed a turn and could have looped in front of us without our knowing. So we decided to keep going not sure if they were in front or behind. After entering the Indian reservation the route was mainly bushwhacking so we didn't know if they'd be covering the same ground as us or not.

Rich and I carried on, approaching Sunrise Camp at 8300 feet up a very challenging scree slope. We all decided that you quickly tire when the ground below you is continually shifting. We managed not to start rock falls on each other though and made it up to the windy camp after a couple hours of slogging. We didn't linger as the daylight was getting short and it was cold up top. We bushwhacked several miles down the mountain before finding the trail back to the car, arriving back at the trailhead around 8:30pm. We didn't see Meredith and Scott so after trying to reach them on the cell phone we sat in the car to wait. We planned to camp by the car and if they didn't come in in the morning to call the sheriff. We worked out that the latest they could come in would probably be 10:45pm or it would have been too dark to navigate the no-trails section. Around 10:30pm I turned to see two bobbing headlights coming out of the woods. Hugs all around and we drove home to Portland. Turns out Meredith and Scott had missed that turn and gone quite aways in the wrong direction. So they were about two hours behind us most of the day with the light fading fast and hiking by headlamp the last two hours. View activity at MotionBased.