To Lima Day 4: pointless ups and downs

I’m starting the day at mile 803. I’m ending at 825.9. About 23 miles of grueling fence walking on the Idaho/Montana border. 

My little campsite in the trees was sheltered and safe. The storm eventually died down and it was calm. I set an alarm for 5 am. It’s quite dark at that time. I needed my headlamp to put things away and eat. Soon I was back on the trail. 

The road turned the corner back into mountains and trees from its long sage scrub traverse. Soon I was hiking on trail again. 

The trail went up and down. There were frequent little streams and at times I was in shaded forest and other times on grassy hills. 

Soon, after gaining a couple of summits with views, the trail descended in earnest into cattle country. I got water at a stream near a trailhead where a USFS truck was parked. Then I headed out into what felt to me like close to 90 degrees. I passed a northbound hiker and then found myself walking among cattle, following a stream I had made a mental note to gather water. But this was cow trampled water so I did not gather any. 

At 2 pm I noted it was 5 miles to a spring. At the same time I began a steep climb up to the fence line between Idaho and Montana. I got lost numerous times. Sometimes there was no trail or there was trail going the wrong way. At times FarOut positioned me 50 miles off the trail and I would have to wait a long time for it to position me accurately. The climbs were straight up and straight down. It took me until 5:30 to get to the spring. 

I looked at the map and the rest of the day would be more of this fence line. I was exhausted. I had seen a southbound hiker coming up from the spring before I got there. I just couldn’t follow him. I was too tired and frustrated. I did not like all these hills. They are pointless.  

FarOut comments said there was no camping at the spring. They were wrong. I found a tight little spot in some nearby trees. There would be no camping on the ridge and it could be 5 miles or more before I found anything following the trail. Five miles of this ridge walking took me almost 6 hours. So this was the best spot to stop. 

I drank water all day and still I am so thirsty. I can drink all I want camped by this spring. 

It’s about 9.7 miles to I15, according to the app. I’m going to take the Modoc creek alternate and shave off some PUDs (pointless ups and downs).