20.5 miles
Past Bruin Peaks Before Lost Horse Camp
I woke up and started to get packed as Simon, a thru hiker from Britain, was taking off and he does pretty large milage days so that'll be the last I'll see of him most likely. Leaving the burn section, I headed into waist high condensation soaked vegetation. I immediately threw on my rain pants to keep the rest of me from getting soaked. This led directly to wet feet right off the bat this morning, I can't wait for the dry desertish great divide basin in Wyoming where it's not possible to get your feet wet. Of course when I'm there I'm sure I'll be reminiscing about all the water around me currently.
The morning went by relatively uneventfully and we were cruising to get to Badger Guard Station which Randy the caretaker over at Marias Pass Campground talked about as a nice place to rest. The trail converged into old warn jeep roads with mud pits to dodge and grizzly prints to follow in the mud. I've seen so much bear poop and tracks that its pretty normal now and doesn't erk me to much. We moved quickly and got 12 miles done by the time we arrived at the station which is nothing more than a remote log cabin, a well pump, and a few sheds. That being said, it had a great shaded porch for lunch where we ate our dinners instead and dried out or shoes if only for a little bit.
The second half of the day was mostly jeep walking in a Jonathan Ley Map route instead of climbing up into the mountains on the official route. After reconnecting with the official route Spins and I heard a rustling in the trees to our right as we were making our routine "hey bear" calls and I drew out my mace and saw the butt of a grizzly scatter further into the trees and stop. So we slowly made out way past making plenty of noise and continued on. The jeep dirt road walking came to an end and we hung a left onto a grassy trail into the woods up a series of non strenuous switchbacks. After climbing the switchbacks we were a couple of miles from where we thought would be a good camp so we ate our lunch food for dinner because it was less of a hassle then cooking food and moseyed downwards. We ran into Panama, Beth, and the dogs, who we've been flip flopping back and forth while hiking, setting up camp as thunder was making noise in the distance. We didn't make it much further than them set up camp on a slant( and I mean a slant!!), I hung the food and we went to sleep for the night. Socks and shoes still wet as usual, feet nice and wrinkly and blistered as well. Blah. New day tomorrow.
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