20.5 Miles
Junction of Stawberry Creek Trail
This morning was a little on the chilly side but getting up and moving wasn't to difficult. The morning was spent coming down the rest of the ridge and then fording strawberry creek. We followed the river for the rest of the day on the strawberry creek trail.
O e of the more eventful things we encountered this afternoon was the bushwhack shortcut mentioned of the Jonathan Ley maps. Instead over going all the way around the other side of Beaver Lake and then up an unnecessary ridge you could just stay on the other side of the lake and then bushwhack through the woods up some game trails back to the trail. If only it worked that easily haha. Panama and Beth popped out looking for the shortcut saying there were a few game trails and not much direction. I got out the GPS and figured a route. Spins and I stopped on the game trail to snack when I realized the game trail went far to left of the trail and out of the way so I decided to say screw it to the little pathway and to just head strait up through dense brush and some blowdowns. Spins wasn't to happy considering she doesn't like to bushwhack and was feeling low energy. After a few scratches and countless spiderwebs we made it back to trail and could hear Panama and Beth making bear noises up and to the left of the trail. They must have continued on the game trail up off and past the trail. I hollered a few times so they could orient where the trail was and they caught back up as we all entered the Bob Marshall Wilderness officially.
Hiking in the afternoon was in an extensive burn area up and along the creek. When we got to the trail junction for the day it looked like the only potential spot to camp for miles. Another night camped in a burn area...looking for places to hang food was a bit of a pain and Panama and Beth got in and camped near us for the night which was nice as far as safety in numbers goes. We ran into a man hiking north who stopped and talked with us for a while. He had a funny video he took a few days prior of two mountaintop goats hoofing it on the trail towards him not even realizing that he was there. They had their heads down and were breathing hard focusing like we do when climbing up hills. He said hey there and they snapped out of there hiking trance right before almost running into him. It was a really funny video. He also talked of how he doesn't camp in burn areas any ore after a small burnt tree fell onto his shoulder as he slept. Nothing like keeping the fear alive, oh well though better risk than bears!
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