Hiking Dude Blog

I walked 45866 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 20 miles today.
7/24/17 Annelise, Batman, and the two of us all got up about the same time.  Since we aren't cooking, we were on the trail (road) first but Batman caught up to us in a couple hours and we played leapfrog all day long.   We've not seen Annelise but left a note for her in the second trail registry of the trip - out in the middle of no where.  In the registry, we saw that three people hiked by yesterday so there are some not too far ahead. A 6-mile roadwalk followed by another 5 miles of mostly uphill trail brought us to a beautiful saddle and views on both sides.  Rock Candy Mountain dominated the south and still had plenty of snow cornice along its ridge.  It was a wonderful spot to rest a bit.  Way up here above timberline, rock cairns were very helpful.  Also, some very over zealous crew did an astounding amount of work on the trail coming up - thank you! We carried all of our water containers full from the last supposedly reliable water source, but there were many spots along the trail for water. Oh well, just extra weight. Many fresh elk tracks and droppings along the way, but that was all.  I did get hit on the ankle by a grouse though.  She was right on the slightly overgrown trail and I didn't see her. Her baby fluttered to the side, taking my attention, and then she exploded just as I stepped where she sat.  Pretty cool.  We've seen many grouse, dozens of them. Now, we stopped at just 4:30 and plopped the tent by the trail after doing 20 because we're ahead of schedule.  It's a flat spot up high and has breeze but no water around.  This does change the usual uphill first thing in the morning though.  We'll have a huge climb up Bussard Mountain around midday - yuch. Oh, we are filthy dirty!

I walked 60434 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 26 miles today.
7/23/17 Tonight, we ran into Annelise at Pete's Creek camp and got to chat for a couple hours.  She is hiking the trail alone, has great determination, and is gradually putting miles behind her. An injury slowed her up but she's back on trail.  She was fun to talk with and never let the conversation pause very long. Our day began with the usual steep strenuous uphill climb.  Starting at 6:30 makes a huge difference with the temperature being in the 40s instead of the 80s or 90s.  Up the hill, we found our first good patch of huckleberries so we sat down and picked awhile for a break.  I sat right on a small bush and now have purple stains on pants, underwear, and skin. It was worth it. We dropped into the Yaak valley for another long roadwalk.  Josh found out that Yaak is a Kootenai word for arrow.  We just walked across the valley. We stopped for water before our second long uphill at the spot we thought the trail started.  It turns out this was just a short trail to a beautiful waterfall.  After admiring the falls and figuring out it was a deadend, we slogged the very long hot dirt roadwalk up Garver mountain. On the way up, while we were filtering yet more water, a truck stopped.  The pastor from the Yaak church was giving Batman a ride up the hill.  We had heard of Batman in Eureka and thought we might run into him.  He is covering the trail collecting data for an app called HikerBot that hikers use to navigate the trail.  One key thing he is gathering is water sources along the way!!!  You should check out HikerBot.  Josh is planning to download it in a few days. Our day ended with yet another long downhill in the hot late afternoon sun, dropping down to Pete's creek.  In general, the eastern slopes seem more gradual and forested while the western slopes are rocky, steep, and bare.  Makes for nice morning hikes and not so nice afternoons. Tonight's camp was right at mile 200 on the maps!

I walked 40833 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 14 miles today.
7/22/17 Both yesterday and today found us high on mountains with the noon sun pounding mercilessly.  But, today we planned our hike for it and the coming days appear to be similar.  Water scarcity on the PNT is much more of an issue than I expected. We filled 3 liters each before leaving camp with an expected 10 dry miles to a possible spring on Mt. Henry.  If that spring was dry then we'd have 4 more downhill miles to a large creek.  It was a good plan. From 6:30 to noon, we hiked up and down mountains and ridges with no water sources.  Fortunately, it was a cool morning which made the climbs more manageable. The spring we hoped for had a small pool of water, so we could refill and add a small extra climb to the summit of Mt. Henry and see the lookout. As we approached, a loud dog barking welcomed us, then a friendly hello from a man in the lookout.  Bob, and his dog Benny, had hiked up from his truck yesterday to do volunteer maintenance on the old structure.  It was a wonderful time chatting with Bob while the relentless wind roared over the mountain, chilling us in the bright sun.  After a long restbreak, we still had to descend the mountain to water and over one more climb to our camp site...

Day 10 part 2... The trail down was on the west side and brutally hot!  Once off the summit, the cool wind stopped and we continued to descend through open, arid, shadeless stretches.  One interesting thing about the hot sun is that it bakes the smells out of the trees and plants.  Some are good, some not so much.  In a few places, it smelled just like someone was baking a huckleberry pie! We reached Turner creek about 3pm and decided to cool off in it - very nice.  Checking the maps, we still had 10 miles to go which included a 1600foot climb during the hottest part of the day and possibly no water until the end.  Yuch!!!  Since we are already a couple days ahead of schedule, we stopped here at Fish Lake for a very short (but strenuous) day. The climb will wait for tomorrow and we will need to do a 25 mile day in order to complete a dry ridge and find water - see a pattern here? I did see a huge owl silently swoop through the trees in front of me, being chased by a small, screeching bird of some kind. Oh, almost forgot, last night in camp around 10 or so, some large animal visited. It crunched out in the brush making a very strange noise, not like a whoof of a bear, more like a horse huffing and more high pitched than I'd expect a bear to sound.  Anyway, we both grabbed our bear spray and waited until our tired eyes took over again.

I walked 59580 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 26 miles today.
7/21/17 Josh checking in today! (Dad's looking at tomorrow's routes at the moment, so I'll jump into the spotlight). Sticking true to our recently self-imposed morning routine, we got rolling bright and early at 5:30am. Started hiking from Jeremy and Nikki's backyard down the main street, leeching all the free WiFi that we could from outside the stores as we strolled by. Made our way past some tiny convenience store along Lake Koocanusa, so I bought a snickers bar and twinkie (mostly so that I wouldn't feel crummy about enjoying the luxury of their clean bathroom and water refill in the sink. I love getting water without having to filter it!!). We knew that water sources were going to be tricky today, so we chugged a bunch before refilling and pressing onwards. While still fresh from all the rest yesterday, we quickly cranked out 17 miles of road walking and found ourselves at the bottom of Mt. Webb just minutes before 1pm. We nearly witnessed a family of deer get obliterated by the highway traffic, but luckily it didn't go down that way cuz we very well might've been in the splashzone! Feeling good about our pace in the pleasant low-temp hours of the morning, we began ascending Mt. Webb, which we had heard about plenty from the folks last night. The further we climbed, the more the incline seemed to steepen, and the hotter it felt like the sun was shining overhead. Conserving water was at the forefront of both our minds, and to accomplish this we needed to maintain a steady, yet efficient pace to minimize our exposure to the sun beaming down on our side of the mountain. We zig-zagged up to the top by 3:30pm, stopping once to nibble on some huckleberries; we were cutting it close with a few drips of water to spare, and at least 2 more miles until the next water source that we could see on the map. We hiked the trail along the ridge line as it flattened out, expecting to see a pond to refill with....

Part 2 of Day 9... But we could see nothing but forest. Huh. Water was the number one priority for the moment, so we made a mental note of our location and hopped off the trail to begin wandering downhill where any rainwater might pool up. After 10 minutes of climbing over, under, and around downed trees (that place could benefit from a forest fire to clear it up one of these years... Knock on wood) we made it to what I like to call the Puddle of Life. Or miracle puddle. Both get the point across - I was very happy to see that water. Admittedly it was more the size of a pond than a puddle. We got our water, navigated our way back to the trail, and pressed on to a creek about 5 miles further where we set up the tent, ate our calorie-dense dinners, and did the calculations to realize we had just finished our third marathon day of 26 miles. We're gonna have to slow down so we get to our destination on time!

I finished hiking for today. You can check out my current location on the map and I'll post about my day when I am in coverage.

I finished hiking for today. You can check out my current location on the map and I'll post about my day when I am in coverage.

I finished hiking for today. You can check out my current location on the map and I'll post about my day when I am in coverage.

I finished hiking for today. You can check out my current location on the map and I'll post about my day when I am in coverage.