This is the fourth chapter of seven in Book 1 of the
Charlie and Mindy
tetralogy—which is a story of forbidden love between a brother and a sister. I am rewriting and reposting a series I removed over two years ago.
It takes time for the chaste love between a brother and a sister to become erotic love between a man and a woman, and the first few chapters of this book chronicle that transformation, so the early chapters of this series may not be what you're looking for. While there is sexual activity in every chapter, the "good parts" of the story don't appear until later chapters.
You can follow Charlie and Mindy's hike on USGS topographical maps or on on-line versions of them. (There are a number of good ones on the Web.) Their campsite above Island Lake is at 43° 4' 32" N, 109° 36' 52" W.
I value your comments and your feedback. When circumstances permit, I will try to respond to each.
—CarlusMagnus
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Thursday
I passed the night much as I had the last few, waking now and then as we changed position, but returning to sleep almost immediately. Mindy must have awakened a little before I did. I vaguely remember her coaching me into rolling toward her, into our favorite spoon position, as I struggled up from the depths of a sound sleep. Evidently, she enjoyed the feeling of my morning wood between her ass cheeks. I liked that, too; and it meant that I got to squeeze one of her boobs.
We lay there for a while, each enjoying the feel and the warmth of the other's body, fuzzily coming to grips with the new day. But, as always, hydraulic pressure forced us out of the bag and the tent into the morning chill. As I peed, I looked up to find a clear sky above us. The morning sun shone on the peaks about us, but we were still in the shadow of a ridge that lay a bit north of east. And it was cold.
We dressed hurriedly. Equipped for the morning chill, we set about fixing breakfast. Coffee first, and then oatmeal again, followed by pancakes. For a little treat, I threw a handful of raisins into the oatmeal.
We finished our breakfast and did the camp chores; then it was time for our morning duties. Mindy picked up her water bottle, the trowel, and the plastic bag in which we kept the toilet paper. She started off for "the ladies' room." And the realities of camping above timberline intruded. It suddenly dawned on her: There were no woods for her to hide in. "What'm I gonna to do?" she squawked.
"What's the problem?" I asked. "Don't like the view?"
She glared at me. I pointed at a nearby boulder that was still well away from our camp and from the pond and the stream. It was the size of a small cabin.
"At least there are boulders here you can hide behind," I observed.
"But the other side of the boulder is just as open as this side. Anyone within miles will be able to see…"
I looked around. "I don't see anybody but me." I gave her a grin that was at least as evil as any she'd ever given me. "Hurry up. I need the trowel and the TP, too."
She stalked off toward the boulder and disappeared behind it. She returned a few minutes later—with a sheepish grin.
"Did everything come out okay?" I asked.
I got three punches for that question. After my punishment, I found my own boulder.
When I returned, we talked about what we could do that day. The plan had been to camp here for two consecutive nights. We'd talked about a day hike to Indian Basin, and we still thought that a good idea.
We stuffed our daypacks with more warm clothing, food, a water bottle each, and the other things needed for safe travel in the mountains. Thinking ahead to supper, I put the pinto beans we'd brought into a pot full of water to soak. I covered it and set it out of the way so we wouldn't accidentally kick it over when we returned to camp. A good-sized rock on top of it, I figured, would keep camp-robbing critters out.
We set off back down the ramp toward Island Lake, and turned right when we reached the trail that had brought us up to the lake the day before. We rounded the end of the lake and followed the trail northwestward for a few hundred yards. There it turned north again, and as we topped a little rise just before that turn, we had a good view of the island, a quarter of a mile off to our left, that gives the lake its name. We had seen half-a-dozen tents along the shores of the lake, but none of them was near the main trail. We encountered no one as we passed the lake.
As we approached a fork half a mile north of the trail's turn, Elephant Head came into view on our right. It looked to me more like a whole elephant—immense, 1,400 feet high, facing to the west, with a large tarpaulin draped over it and staked out like a tent. It disappeared again a few minutes later as we followed the right fork, which curved northward around to the left of a low, cone-shaped peak that loomed to the east.
Once we were far enough north to get around that conical peak, the trail turned eastward again, and we passed a low ridge on our left. A little south of east, and a mile and a half away, rose the triangular block of Harrower Peak. To its north, just visible over a nearby ridge, lay the Divide, in the form of Knife Point Mountain and the jagged ridge that extends to its north. As we rounded that conical peak, Elephant Head came back into sight—looking even more like an elephant forming the ridgepole of a huge tent. Soon, we found ourselves at the head of a little lake.
We took a break, low on the southwest rim. From there, we could look northeast, toward Jackson Peak, across the lake-strewn floor of the lower part of the basin. A little farther to the north stood Fremont Peak. The basin itself was well above timberline. Gray granite rocks, ranging from pebble-size to office-building-size, lay everywhere, and it contained little vegetation. But there were some spots of green alpine tundra and an occasional willow thicket. And, even in August, patches of snow lay here and there—some of them quite large.
I looked to the east, hoping for a glimpse of Harrower Glacier high on the basin wall, but it couldn't be seen from where we sat. Neither, I found, could Indian Pass, which lay a half-mile or so north of the glacier and gave access, over Knife Point Glacier on the other side of the Divide, to the Fitzpatrick Wilderness. Crossing that pass was on the list of things I wanted to do someday. But more than two miles and 1,000 feet of elevation lay between us and the pass. We weren't equipped to extend our trip as I would've liked to do.
As I looked toward the backbone of the range, surrounded by the grandeur of granite peaks and ridges, Mindy moved in close to me and put her arm around me. She spoke in a voice that conveyed the awe she felt. "Charlie, I see why you love the high country. I want to spend more time in the mountains from now on, too. Do you think we can do more of this next summer? And every summer?"
I put my arm around her. "I'd like that. Let's start planning for next summer as soon as we get home."