Day: 104
Date: Sunday, 18 August 2024
Start: Kay Creek
Finish: Boatman Springs Road
Daily Kilometres: 34.8
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos
Total Kilometres: 3062.0
Weather: Cool early then mild, sunny and breezy.
Accommodation: Tent
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Pop tarts/Muesli
Lunch: Trail mix
Dinner: Snacks & trail mix
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:
We were again late getting away, this time because we were trying to sort out some arrangements for our next resupply stop while we had some phone reception. It was 7am by the time we started hiking on a cool sunny morning.
Initially, we descended from the saddle where we had camped through some forest burn areas then we had a day of some big ascents and descents, over 4000’ of each overall and some of them were steep with what we are calling ball-bearing slopes where small ball-bearing size rocks make the going treacherous. Dave sat down hard several times. For much of the day we were following the Idaho-Montana state border which seems to follow the crest of the Continental Divide.
At the top of the ascents, generally at around 8500’-9000’, we had some lovely high ridge walking through pastures and sagebrush with frequent magnificent views into Idaho and Montana. The descents generally took us down through shady pine forests to saddles before another steep climb.
The steep bits took a toll on our average speed (and Dave's body) which was slower today, despite walking a forest road for the last 5km. Water sources were scarce and we didn't reach a stream to get water for dinner until 7:30pm and then find somewhere to camp until 7:45pm. To save time, and because we are going to be eating in town tomorrow, we decided to just have some snacks for dinner and a wet-wipes wash in the tent.
We only saw three other people today, two southbound CDT thru-hikers and a rancher in his pickup just before we camped for the night.
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