I had my usual posting on a hiking group calendar go from 15 interested to six actual persons who committed to come. Two wasted spaces on a permit for eight. That's the way backpacking with groups seems to work.... A seventh also made it but as she was flying from NY and slightly off our schedule, she got her own permit from a different trailhead to meet us en route. She sounded like a solid hiker and had experience backpacking, and so I agreed to this plan. And if she didn't make it - usually they don't when they attempt to find us this way - she was more than capable of just doing her own thing.
The group met at Wolverton to drop cars there, and waited for our sixth, who was late due to a flat - a text from her as I came up to the park was one of the last ones I got before losing cell service. As she did not appear by the time I'd indicated, we jammed the five of us in a Honda Fit and drove to Roads End. After decanting the contents of the Fit in a campsite at Sheep Creek I drove to the wilderness permit office to get tomorrow's permit. Road work nearly thwarted that effort as it was close to 3:30, closing time for the wilderness office, but I made it. Hiker #6 was already waiting there on a bench as agreed, flat fixed, and followed me back to our campsite.
The following morning, we got an early start up the Bubbs trail. Not an alpine start, but we did our best to get as far as we could before full sun and low elevation could slow us down. Met a ranger on the way up - she was going to Lake Reflection. Since she was the same one who issued my permit the previous day she didn't check it. We crawled up the switchbacks, passed a dead fox (I knew I didn't smell that bad yet!), crossed the bridge at the junction and continued up Avalanche Pass.
Climbing Avalanche Pass in jeans wasn't fun, but one of the group left her hiking pants in her car at Wolverton.... the forecast was great, and the weather stayed fine, so she was ok. Until she traded her pants for someone else's... more on that later.
Met a HST forum member (wish I remembered what his handle is, but unfortunately it was one of the details that disappeared... sorry, friend) and his buddy on the way up the pass. We talked about Golden Trout Wilderness, among other things. But they were going to Sphinx Lakes, and we were hiking through to other places, so the conversation was destined to be short.
We camped at Sphinx Creek, and one of us went up to the first of the Sphinx Lakes to catch a few trout. A small campfire helped keep skeeters at bay. The following morning we finished the pass and descended to Roaring River, where it was hot and not buggy, to camp right next to the bridge. The other site was occupied by a trail crew. We chatted with the guys and spent a little time fishing and exploring. Hiker #7 arrived and brought with her a big surprise. An infected toe.
You might think, if you had no first aid training at all, that it wouldn't be a big deal. She was sort of walking and in pain, but it wasn't such a huge impairment. Unless you consider that the pus around the toenail, the angry red big toe, and all the swelling and the heat coming off the foot means there's more than a localized response. And the following morning it was worse. Draining the abscess around the nail in such an environment is not a good idea, and the infection was clearly traveling. The trail crew leader called dispatch, and after the helicopter was done taking someone with a dislocated hip (!) out of Evolution, it arrived to take our limping hiker out to Ash Mountain helipad.
She received medical care, per her text via an InReach, and is doing fine, not limping for three more days on an advancing infection without antibiotics. She gave our jeans-wearing hiker some better pants to wear and took the jeans out with her on the helicopter.
Meanwhile, the rest of the group was hiking. One of the ladies and I stayed until the helicopter took off (about noon) and then went up the trail after them. We took some nice pics along the way up the canyon, and found them at the campsite I had already chosen from my last trip up Deadman.
to be continued...
) but maybe this was a trip for firsts -- first group member sent off in a helicopter, first dead fox in the trail, now this? 
Thank you for sharing your adventures and beautiful pictures.