Date: Saturday, 03 August 2024
Start: Elkhart Park (but staying in Pinedale)
Finish: Upper Jean Lake
Daily Kilometres: 28.3
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos.
Total Kilometres: 2596.4
Weather: Warm and sunny.
Accommodation: Tent
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Microwaved breakfast burritos
Lunch: Cheese & meat rolls
Dinner: Rehydrated meals
Aches: Dave - the usual niggles; Julie - nothing reported.
Highlight: Nothing in particular.
Lowlight: Nothing in particular.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
Irish, our volunteer shuttle driver, a retired local resident who hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2022, picked us up at exactly 8am as promised. We had a good chat with her as she drove us back to the Elkhart Park trailhead. The trailhead carpark was packed with scores of cars with license plates from many states.
We began hiking at 8:45am, retracing our inbound steps from Thursday for the first 9km before taking the Seneca Lake Trail another 7km back to the CDT. It was busy, with overnight hikers setting out and others returning. We even met a few people we saw on Thursday who wondered what we were doing heading out. When we explained, they often seem a little over-awed, and perhaps a little envious.
The day was warm and sunny and the scenery superb again - rugged rocky mountains backing reflective lakes. The trail was generally very rocky and technical and it was often slow going, especially on the little rocky passes that separated the seemingly endless lakes.
Once we reached the CDT and turned northwards, there were far fewer hikers and, for the last few hours of our hiking day, we didn't see any.
We cooked dinner by a lovely lake around 5pm and then endured mosquitoes for our last few kilometres of the day. Around 7:30pm, we found a spot to put up the tent near the trail near the top of a low pass with some patches of snow visible nearby. We are quite high again, at just over 11000'.
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