My five day trip got cut to three before it started, and after doing Volunteer
today I cut it down to just the one day.

When I started at midnight out of Twin Lakes, everything was going just great
- nice temps, a half moon just rising, beautiful evening. I stopped around 3am
near Peeler Lake for a break and was swarmed by mosquitos. First time I've seen
them out at that hour. As the day came on the mosquitos really came out in
force. They must be peaking for the season because I have never seen them so bad
in the Sierra. Usually if I'm hiking and moving along the mosquitos are no
problem, but they were dogging me the whole day. Everyone else I met along the
way (a half dozen PCTers and various other backpackers) complained about them
even more since they had no rest in camp from them.
It was also rather warm today, hot really, even at 8-9,000ft. I got blisters
and heat rash and drank quite a bit.
To top it off, the outing to Volunteer was longer than I had expected, around
45mi instead of 40mi. The extra two hours took their toll on my feet. Just over
18hrs RT. The best part of the day was finding a cool route up the West Face.
Nice rock on that peak.
So I quit and drove home. I think I'll wait for the weather to cool a bit and
for the mosquitos to start dying off.