The next morning, Wednesday, I did sleep in until 8:30 and felt great when I woke up. I boiled water and rehydrated some scrambled eggs and bacon, which were really darn good. Frank helped me with the clean-up operation. Always helpful. I packed up camp and set off down the trail, stopping at Lower Sandbar to catch one brook trout and then at Rawah #2 to catch 5 rainbow trout. I spent quite awhile at #2 since it was big and beautiful. I was tickled by my luck to find every lake completely deserted upon arrival. I followed the waterway coming out of Rawah #2 down to Rawah #1 (really inspirational naming in this area). There I caught 2 brook trout almost within a minute of each other. I moved on up to Little Rainbow Lake and decided not to fish it since the shores had so much vegetation growth (lot of snagging potential). However, I did entertain myself by throwing a stick into the water repeatedly for Frank, who would swim in after it. The lake had a shallow shelf that dropped off abruptly into an unknown depth of dark water. When Frank fell off into that abyss and began swimming in that ice-cold water, I heard him let out a loud grunt, as if to say, "Holy crap this water is cold!"

The trail eventually led us to McIntyre Lake, which was really large. Total hike from Upper Sandbar was only around 3 miles. Clouds had rolled in by then, and they looked more serious then any yet encountered. We found a campsite up in the trees on the west side of the lake.  After camp was set up we went fishing on the boggy edge of the lake. The mosquitoes proved to be a bit of a problem at this lake, but it wasn’t long before the fish were biting and I forgot all about them. The fish in this lake were the most wily I encountered, skimming away to deep water at even a hint of movement from me or my stealthy fishing partner. Nevertheless, I caught 4 rainbow trout before the rain started falling and I retreated to my tent nearby. I slept through the rain shower and woke up after 2 hours to cook dinner and stretch my legs.