21.1 Miles
Deadman Lake
This morning got off to a cold but dry start. The trail faded out immediately and Ley suggested not to follow the cairns or bear creek map route and gave general directions. That led to an interesting morning...we got off to a good start crossed a open high grassland and went to far left and found ourselves on a steep face with one way to go: down. Way down steeply. We managed to slide down the area to flatter ground and saw a post far off on a saddle in the distance. Bushwhacking through sage there, we came up to a very steep uphill that was trailess with a tiny little trail marker at the top. At the top I faced Cottonwood mountain with the option to go up over even across on game trails or down and around on the 'official route'. None of these options had actual designated trail. We we t down and around after coming up to get to this point I had already had my fill of climbing for the day.
After going around Cottonwood mountain we ran into bunches of nobos and talked with them all a good while. Water was relatively scarce and we still had not really hike on trail. This afternoon was spent hiking through valley with actual trail and we then whipped around and up a side ridge. We picked up a jeep road which was the old CDT and led us steep down to Deadman Lake where we ate late, made a small fire, and went to sleep on nice level campground quality space.
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