Waking up early after hiking so much is hard to do. My legs are stiff and it’s cold outside. I’ve been hanging my bear bag so I can’t even sort out my food without getting up. Luckily, getting up early gets you views like this.
This was my last real view of the Winds before I made my way out into forest and plains. The trail out here is pretty rough without much upkeep. I spent a lot of time going up and over trees that have blown down. I actually got excited when I saw horse poop in a section because that meant the blowdowns weren’t so bad that a horse couldn’t go over them.
I also saw a lot of cows, poop, and tracks. This whole area is pasture and the cows take advantage of it. I saw one in the forest and thought it was the biggest black bear ever for a second. Then I saw this MASSIVE herd.
Most of the day looked like the photo above. Rolling hills with forest at the top. Sometimes in the woods the mosquitoes were so bad that I had to wear a bug net over my head while I hiked. I covered myself in DEET too. It mostly worked.
Despite the blowdowns and the hard to follow trail I made great progress today. I only have about 20 miles to get to town. At the end of the day I found this nice campsite on a ridge.
It’s not the most spectacular site I’ve had in the last few days. What makes it amazing is that there aren’t any mosquitoes!! I’ve been dealing with them in camp for days and finally I got to relax at camp without having that horrible buzzing around my face all the time.
This site also has some cell phone service and I was able to book myself a hotel for tomorrow night. I’m really looking forward to town after what will be (I think) my longest food carry ever.