17.5 Miles
Big Hole Pass
After getting up and out of the hotel, it took about a half hour to get a ride back up to the pass. Up at Lost Trail Pass we snacked until bookish when we started up the road for the mile long hike back to the trail at Chief Joseph Pass. The trail was an ATV track for a good chunk of miles which was nice because my pack with two liters of water and six days of food is HEAVY!!
We then came to actual trail with a 'Closed Fire Hazard Entry by Permit Only' sign and next to it a official fire notice which was active July 30th 2012. I didn't read the year so I thought the trail was closed until Spins noticed it being a year off. So we figured the other trail closed sign didn't apply any more and mosey on up some really steep bullshit trail. Once up there the whole area was really smoky and we both thought 'well shit maybe it is closed and there is a fire.' We then passed by a pile of unattended wildfire unit's gear, water, and other stuff with nobody to be found but plenty of footprints around. This furthered our doubt as to whether the trail was open or not.
After another really steep downhill and uphill I checked my phone and had 4G so I went onto inciweb which is basically the primary online wildfire update website and saw that there were fires in Idaho that were close but not close enough to affect the trail. Whew...I was not in the mood to backtrack to the road so luckily the trail was open and not on fire.
The rest of the day we hurried chasing the falling daylight and stopped a half mile short of our campsite to eat a quick dinner. Busted out the headlamps for the first time on trail and did a short amount of night hiking until we came across the pass around 10. So we got just under a full day in even though we started at noon. The terrain was a pain in the ass as well so it wasn't easy hiking. Yay us!!
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