This was one of my favorite days on the route!

Like yesterday, we began by hiking up a steep forest, avoiding fallen trees and shrubbery. It was going to be a long climb up to Gabbot Pass.

At each lake we passed, we took a small break but the landscape just kept getting more impressive the higher we climbed. At Lower Mills Lake, we found a top tier campsite but it was way too early in the day.Once we could see the pass, a deep notch in between Mt Gabb and Mt Abbott, we climbed up a cascade and stayed left of the river and Upper Mills lake. We found a nice overhanging boulder to have lunch in the shade - more tortilla, cheese and summer sausage.Here we chose a path over some rounded hillocks instead of the gully to the left.The terrain shifted from large boulders, to packed dirt, and finally snow toward the top.Finally we reached Gabbot Pass, the highest we've been so far at 12,200 ft! The glacial melt had even formed a crystal blue lake at the top of the pass. Our next objective was Lake Italy. Grassy ledges created nice ledges to walk on, and pretty soon we arrived at the lake.

The guidebook describes this area as uninspiring, but we found it to be the opposite! Neither of us had ever seen a sandy beach at such a high elevation before, and I had probably the best swim of the entire trip here.

The lake stretched on far to the west, so we traversed its north shore until reaching the outlet.

There was supposed to be a trail here, but we could only follow it for a short distance. At about 10,950 ft we veered left into a different drainage, and suddenly Brown Bear Lake appeared before us.We assumed that there'd be good campsites here, and we were right! The lake was a perfect bowl surrounded by steep walls, and we chose a ledge overlooking the water. The wall to the southern side, which we'd be going up tomorrow, looked incredibly vertical. As the sun set, an orange rim appeared on the peaks all around us.Dinner was a protein mac and cheese I got in Mammoth (mid), and some oatmeal with summer sausage oatmeal to top off. We slept with rain fly half off to enjoy the stars!

Second Recess to Brown Bear Lake - 9.56 mi and 3720 ft gained.