Day 072 - Continental Divide Trail - North Three Island Creek to Whiskey Creek

Day: 072

Date: Wednesday, 17 July 2024

Start:  North Three Island Creek

Finish:  Whiskey Creek

Daily Kilometres:  40.4

GPX Track:  Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos

Total Kilometres:  2087.2

Weather:  Cool early then warm and mostly sunny.

Accommodation:  Tent 

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Pop tarts/Muesli

  Lunch:  Snacks

  Dinner:  Rehydrated meals

Aches:  Dave - very tired and the usual niggles; Julie - nothing reported.

Highlight:  Nothing in particular.

Lowlight:  Late in the day, a misunderstanding meant that we were separated for nearly 90 minutes and it cost considerable time and energy to find each other again.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We were hiking by soon after 6am, as usual.  After a climb over a ridge on a beautiful morning, we descended to a trailhead on Middle Fork Elk River where two things of importance to thruhikers could be found, a toilet (pit) and a trash dumpster.

After making use of those facilities we began a long climb back up from 8000’ to 10000’ on trails following the North Fork Elk River upstream.

The first part was a bit unpleasant on narrow single-track through wet undergrowth, although as we climbed into the forest the trail was drier.   After another hour, the CDT joined 4WD/ATV tracks which we followed for the rest of the day.  They climbed up through alpine meadows and pine forest.  Most of the time the walking was relatively easy, but every now and then there was a very steep climb on rough rocky trail.

At the top of the climb, there was a lovely hour or two at 10000’ walking through meadows and forest on level trail.  Magic.

Later we began a descent, to 9000’, punctuated with some short steep climbs over knolls.  We lost some time late in the day due to a misunderstanding (see above) and didn't actually reach the water we needed to camp, and a tent site, until just after 7pm, a later day than we had hoped.