July 20th, 2024
Mile Marker: 759
Miles Hiked: 17
We slept in this morning and decided we would take it slow until check out and then try to get out to the trail.
I spent the morning chatting on the phone with my grandmother and doing a few trail chores.
Around 9 we headed over to the local restaurant and grabbed some breakfast.
To our surprise but… almost not anymore, we saw Aster, Whatever, and Captain eating breakfast. We are always thrilled to see them and catch up on the last 5 days.
I ordered a breakfast burrito and hash browns and felt like I downed it in one gulp. Hiker hunger has definitely settled in.
Unfortunately there were no cinnamon rolls but maybe next town!
We headed back, finished getting our packs together and sat outside the hostel and chatted with the other hikers. 6 of us were trying to head out today but all of us were very lackadaisical about it. Time started to tick by and I even went and shot some hoops at the basketball goal.
It’s been so long since I’ve shot so it was an absolute blast. Hopefully someday I can play in an adult league or continue to make shooting a routine. I thought about the hours and hours I would spend at the gym or outside of our childhood home shooting and shooting. I did it to get better but I also just loved it, it was something that soothed me growing up. I can remember my dad hollering out to me to come inside because it was getting too dark outside in the summers.
Around noon, Journey and I went and grabbed sub sandwiches for lunch and eventually I asked the hostel owner about a shuttle ride. Most of his drivers were out today but he was able to get us one with Randy. Popeye and Ravenclaw joined us.
Randy was super sweet and claimed he would be out hiking more of the trails if his knees worked better. He had a little trail journal he kept in his car for his passengers to sign and see who has come before them.
Once back to Bannock pass it was around 1 PM and the hottest part of the day. Not smart on our part but at least we got out… Right?
The day was a lot of gravel forest roads again but it was incredibly beautiful.
We were told this section is rollercoaster like, up and down. When I originally thought about this, I didn’t expect to have views the whole time. Having views makes the climbs so much easier!
We had one ginormous climb to Elk Mountain then smaller ones.
We stopped at the first spring which was 12 miles in and had to decide where we wanted to go and decided we would make it to the next spring, knowing that it would be a later evening than usual.
We arrived at the second spring and saw in the comments on the Far Out app that there is no trail to the spring but that we would have to bushwhack and go straight out from the sign.
Once we passed a little hill we could see the spring far off in the distance. Perfect.
We collected the ice cold water then headed back to trail to find a camp spot. We decided to go up the hill so we could have a sunset and sunrise. However, we didn’t think about the fact that there is no trees available to hang our bear bags.
So we set up camp, hiked back down to trees, ate dinner, threw our bag hangs, then went back up the mountain to camp. While going back up we saw the moon shining big and bright. It lit up the mountains beautifully.
Everything took longer than expected and we got into camp at 10 PM. Sheesh!
It’s a bit windy tonight but we are very hopeful that it dies down or else our tent will be shaking all night!
Fingers crossed.
Iz and Oz
Izzy + Ozzy 