I’m starting the day at mile 248.
It was a beautiful morning walk down Dearborn river. One crossing was to my crotch and pretty cold for so early. Another was swift but comments led me to a safer crossing. Healthy forest returned. Eventually I found a good place to dry my things and Lotus and Mowgli appeared and took a break with me.
I hiked with Mowgli for a while. The trail went through pretty forest that reminded me of Northern California and sometimes of Southern California. Then I did not see a junction and was reveling in how pretty everything was and here came Mowgli walking toward me. He said we went the wrong way. As I turned back to follow him back to the trail, here came Lotus who also missed the junction
We returned to the junction just as the Aussies arrived (Sail Cat and Drop Bear). The five of us together again at least for a while.
We crossed Dearborn river at a wet but not difficult ford. Then began a super steep climb. I rested at a small creek and watched storm clouds form. Unsure what to do I waited for the others.
We started climbing and had great views. The clouds grew darker. We could see rain in the distance. Then we could see lightning. Thunder was rolling around and above us.
We had recently passed a junction to a trail that would descend into the valley and then connect back to the CDT in a little more than 7 miles. A lot of descent and climbing back up. Seemed wise so we descended the west fork falls creek trail.
It started raining off and on and then in earnest once we reached the junction with middle fork falls creek so we camped there.
I hiked 23 miles in 12.5 hours.
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