16 Miles
Saddle Off the Car Trail
Got the morning started off right with cinnamon buns from the store and egg and cheese hoagies made with our camp stoves. Thomas, the guy who gave us a ride down to town, swung by at ten and gave Spins and I lift back up to the trail. Thomas grew up here so he told us all sorts of cool historical facts and stories about Leadore which was really neat because we never really here to much about the back stories of the trail towns we pass through.
We started off on a car trail for a few miles and the sun was out and it was hot!!I knew the weather forecast though, chance of afternoon thunderstorms... The whole morning and afternoon was climbing uphill. I saw my first pronghorn antelope of the trip from a decent distance as it ran in zig zags away from us which was exciting. We made it to treeline around 9600' and saw heavy dark clouds roll in with some strong winds so we took an extended snack break as the storm rolled over where we were headed. When the clouds mostly passed we headed up and came across a small pack of elk, around a dozen or so, come tearing ass down the mountain we were heading up which was not to great of a sign. As we kept climbing, the sky grew dark over Elk Mountain which we had to go up over at 10,200'. As we went over and across, huge raindrops fell from the sky and he wind whipped around cold air and my only thought was let's get up over and down as quick as possible. Luckily the storm blew over without more than some showering. Dinner was eaten nestled in the trees next to a piped sling while it rained in the sunshine behind us on the ridge. After dinner came countless ups and downs on these grassy balds following ATV tracks until we came to a nice windbreak area with a few trees and bushes where we called it a night.
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