WalkingCarrot

It sounds repetitious, but, once again we woke to frost on tent and frozen water bottles. Ughh. In fact, the drinking tube on the platypus took over 2 hours of hiking to thaw out. A low.

But the day was all clear, brilliant blue skies, and stayed that way. A high. With 20 miles to go to the highway we needed a nice day for hiking to get there in time to get a ride to Dubois.

We came within 50 to 60 yards of a herd of elk, including a bull with a large rack, several young bulls and 15 to 20 cows. A real High.

As the sun melted the mud we slid around a bit. The daily freezing and thawing created a fresh pallet for tracks and last nigths freeze had captured several fresh wolf tracks as well as some which looked more like a mountain lion’s. Very exciting!

The trail wandered across ridges, made it’s way into deep and wide river valleys and offered views of tall, jagged peaks and steep carved cliffs formed by glaciers. The scenery was among the best we had seen in quite some time. Very High.

Old guidebook direction, old directions in the supplement, a trail junction not marked on the map and with signage useful only to a northbound hiker, all lead to taking a wrong turn. Bummer. We walked a mile or so before realizing the mistake. On the “plus” side were some great views, high on a prominent ridge. On the “down” side – we just added 2 miles to an already long day.

And my left shin’s pain really began to bark even louder. It’s likely “only” shin splints, but it’s as bad as any that I ever had in 8 years of competetive running. Downhill is the worst and as we started down of the ridge, I was hobbled, limping and in pain. Definite LOW.

A short rest, and some water and snacks seemed to revive me. Advil got me going again. We had ten miles left and we did it with no breaks, other than for the ocasional stand up photo. We needed to.

After delays due to frozen ground, which turned to mid-day mud, an unexpected detour and shin splints, we had to push hard to make town, or fall back and get in tomorrow. But the logistics of getting, and sending, Saturday mail really made a Friday arrival to town important.

Brooks lake(s) and meadows and mountains were stunning. We pushed on. The day stayed bright blue and clear.

At he highway we got a GREAT ride, maybe the best ever. Almost in an instant, the third vehicle going by stopped. A native of Dubois we were driven up and down the main drag so we could see all the food and lodging options. After crusing town, stopping at the driver’s house to make calls about restaurant closing hours and room availability, we were dropped off at our destination of choice. But, the best part is that we were able to arrange for a ride back to the trail on Sunday!

Nice to end the day on a definite HIGH.

Miles 22 (detour included, heck we walked it.)