Day 51 - Berries, Blowdowns, Burns......and Rain

August 8th

20 Miles

In Trees Past Dirt Road Intersection 

Last night as we were falling asleep we had the pleasure of listening to a coyote pack nearby for about an hour, our first of the trip! Two nobo's camped around us and when I got up they were still there (to my amazement). I guess I am starting to cross paths with more relaxed hikers which is more my style of hiking. Five more nobos showed up this morning at camp after I was done breakfast and packed up and we swapped trail info for a bit so I didn't get out of camp until around 8:15. 

This morning the hiking went quickly and transitioned into burn area that was pretty wrecked with multiple trail leading all over the place. My maps, GPS, and info from the nobos this morning made it manageable to get through but a pain in the butt because of multiple blowdowns all over. It didn't keep us from getting misplaced though. We went up on a saddle as opposed to around and found ourselves looking for the trail and found it to the southwest. We followed it and realized it was a side trail in the wrong direction so we headed back up and then followed a small game track the  bushwhacked down until we hit the trail again. 

We cruised downhill and then ate lunch ate water and followed the trail which transitioned to a dense boulder laden forest near Aldous Lake. The forest gave way to raspberries, thimbleberries, huckleberries, and I think bramble berries. I ate my  fair share but kept my hiking pace up because clouds were stating to form, thicken, and grey. At the end of the day, Spins and I hiked into a meadow valley full of pussy willow grabbed water for the night and kept hiking. We ate dinner around 7pm four tenths of a mile from twenty miles for the day and watched rain fall all around us. I tried to make dinner as quick as possible and right when I finished cooking and had my wrap in my hands the rain started. I ate super fast packed and covered everything, hiked up the hill to a nice treed in spot and set up for the night. It's still raining a little but it shouldn't last all night.