The next day, we packed up and headed to Cache Col. We dropped our packs, donned climbing gear and split the party. Bob led Mixup Peak (I had climbed it on a previous occasion) and I led Magic Mountain. My group descended Magic Mountain, picked up our packs and headed to Kool-Aid Lake, named by early campers who claimed to have used the entire lake (really a small pond) to make Kool-Aid. During our descent, clouds moved in and we were able to find the very small “lake” purely by chance. On the descent from Mixup Peak, Bob picked up his gear and headed out, leaving the others to find us in the fog. That left me as the only experienced climber with 7 novices; this created problems for the rest of the trip.

In this picture on Magic Mountain, I was wearing my warm weather outfit: wind pants with shorts. The wind pants keep the sun off the legs, while the shorts protect the wind pants seat. Good climbers don't use their knees, so no protection is needed there.