Mustang 'n' Cowboys

DAY THREE...
Had bacon and eggs for breakfast. Tony fed while I packed all my gear up and then I fed while he packed his gear. We got up at 6:00am and were on the trail by 10:00am. It was a pretty good trail for the first three quarters of the way. The trail ran beside Mono Creek for a while and then went through some aspen, pasture areas, pine and redwood forest (which was real neat). The sun was almost blocked out and the trees where thick; one of them had bear claw marks about five feet high. There were boulders 12' to 20' high here and there. Went through some switchbacks and then came out where the Mono Creek Trail tied into the Mott Lake Trail that headed for Pocket Meadow.
We made camp at about 3:00pm and turned the horses loose to free graze for about 45 minutes. We had to build a campsite by digging a pit for the fire and surrounding it with rock. After flattening a spot to lay down on, we layed down at 5:00pm, had some jerky and then went to sleep. One of the times that I woke up Cahlibur was laying down. Travis

Got up around 6:00am, had bacon and eggs for breakfast. I took the boys out to graze while Trav packed up his panniers, and when he brought the girls out I tied the guys up and packed my gear. We left camp about 10:00am.
It took 5 hours to ride to Pocket Meadow. The trail was downhill most of the way with a long switchback climb the last 1/2 mile. For some reason when we started this morning Belle decided to be nervous about her pack. About 5 minutes down the trail she bucked around me a couple of time and then was fine. As we were riding through a heavily wooded area we saw a tree that had been clawed by a bear. Judging from the height of the marks (which were about 5ft) I'd say the bear wasn't all that big. When we reached Pocket Meadow we had to build our own campsite because the existing ones had evidence of people holding them. One had a fire all set to be lit, and the other had a bag with toilet paper and hand soap.
On the climb up to the meadow we met a guy clearing the trail. He said that "they" had a large camp set up at the beginning of Pocket Meadow. As we were setting up camp we turned all the horses loose in the meadow with their halters on to graze. Think we're going to have some beans tonight? Maybe some jerky? We'll see. Went to bed early around 5:00pm. Somewhere in the middle of the night I woke up. I looked around for Kate and saw her walking toward me from beside out gear. She walked right up to my head , past my shoulders and into my bedroll. I guess she wasn't taking no for an answer. She stayed most of the night and crawled out in the early morning. Tony