WalkingCarrot

We awoke to one of nature’s own alarm clocks: the conspicous sound of cows “crowing”, sort of like a rooster’s “cock-a-doodle-do” only more grating. This was not your typical barnyard “moo”; this was the sound of free range, Alpine Bovine (latin name – “bovinus alpinus”) – it was a cock-a-doodle-moo, mmrroo…mmmrrrrooo..mroo

The winds of yesterday continued through the night and brought with them another cold front, leaving us clear and cold skies. They also brought the first real taste of fall, a hard frost.

We breakfasted on skillet fried potatoes, eggs and sausage, sorted our resupply box and packed to go. Unfortunately our map bag was missing. We will not have detailed maps for the next 90 miles. We have a page from the delorme atlas that covers maybe 40 miles of trail, but lacks any topo info and is at a scale that’s not very useful for figuring out trail junctions or other nuances. As we were leaving Bannock Pass we met a Forest Service person and were ale to get a Salmon NF Travel Map, at an even less detailed scale than the Delorme, but still of some use. Well, it could be worse, at least we do still have the guidebook description, and the route stays pretty close to the crest, so when in doubt “up” is always a good guess.

Sandy is joining us for the next “leg” of the hike, fron Bannock Pass to Monida Pass. We waived goodbye to Kerry and Ken and set out climbing an old jeep road along a fence line on the crest through grass and sagebrush country. With 8 days of food and an incessant climb back into the high country, our pace was very measured. After several hours and a half dozen miles we entered trees again and took lunch – ham and cream cheese on bagels.

We continued the steady climb in mostly open country, occasionally passing through thin groves of Whitebark pine, with good views of the trail ahead and behind us. The trail topped out near the summit of Elk Mountain, we dropped packs and climbed off trail the last couple hundred feet to the summit, 10,194 feet. This is the first time the southbound trail goes above 10,000 feet.

The panorama was stunning. We can see clearly almost the entire route we climbed today. In fact we could trace back most every twist and turn of the Continental Divide back through the Beaverhead Mountains, past Lemhi Pass, all the way to Goldstone Mountain where we ate lunch 3 days ago. Ahead of us we can see clearly our general route for the next several days as well as the Italian peaks and beyond. On the Idaho side, the Lemhi Range dominates the skyline to the south and west, the Lost River range rises behind as well as the Sawtooths and the Bitteroots. On the Montana side the Tendoy, Pioneer, and Tobacco Root mountains, as well as various other mountain ranges all come into view. This is the top of the world!

The day has been cool despite walking mostly in open country exposed to the sun. Now on the top of Elk mountain, the sun is sinking, a breeze is stirring and the day is cooling off quickly as we slide into evening. We head down the mountain at a brisk pace to keep warm and drop 1,500 feet in just 2.5 miles to a flat saddle with ample flat areas for camping.

Miles for the day 12.8