We arrived Thursday night to temps worse than we left in Minneapolis. We were planing to do the Traverse on Sat so we did a few hours up the Skyline for some reconn and warm-up on Friday and then watched the news hoping the shut down could be avoided. Got lucky! I had decided to change the loop route a bit from what I was seeing and start at the Willow Hole/Boyscout TH. This would add another couple miles but give us the opportunity to not have to start so damn early and worry about getting stuck in the Wonderland in the dark. We figured correctly that in a worse case senario Boyscout home in the dark would not be an issue with headlamps. We were on the trail at 8:30 and completed the loop in ten and a half hours just before 7. Took us 4 1/2 hours from Willow Hole to the picnic grounds. When we look back it wasn't so much the route finding as it was committing to a move. A few times we spent too much time looking for a better option and then going with our first choice. We are both 45 and a little more conservative these days. We came out unharmed but I can't say that for my pants or either of our packs
Being back in there was so cool! My girlfriend and I loved it. Great route.
