Tuesday June 10, 19.7mi/31.7km

Kingston Canyon Trailhead (840.7/7440ft) to N Fork Birch Creek (859.0/7300ft) (NV) +1.4mi Austin spur

I didn’t get to sleep until almost 10pm so I slept in and had a late start out of camp. It was chilly in the shade but the day was warming up rapidly.

In less than a mile I passed by this old guard station, which looked like a relic of the 1930s CCC era.

It was a quiet morning of hiking up dirt roads that nobody seems to drive, the only noise was from this very vocal bird.

I had a very gradual uphill hike to a low pass, with heaps of scenery to distract me.

I arrived to a junction point where the guidebook has an option to take an 8 Mile XC route across the top of a ridgeline, but it meant an extra 3,000 ft of climbing and I didn’t want to be stuck up there in the afternoon thunderstorms. So instead I just had a nice relaxing break by the little creek at the junction.

Eventually I left from my little spot and continued up on the rough dirt road, and I only saw one car the whole day. I didn’t hear them coming since they have a modern (electric) car, and they stopped to chat and offered me a cold drink!

Stephen & Zoe were driving back home to Silver City, New Mexico from a “quick trip” they had made up to Fairbanks. Shortly after we parted ways neared the top of the pass and started seeing dozens of these massive insects.

They seem to be some sort of nuisance cricket, they don’t seem to fly or bite. They can only hop. But there were hundreds of them, all scattering out of my path as I walked down the road.

But it was a very scenic descent into the next little valley for Big Creek.

Then I climbed up over another pass and down into the Birch Creek valley. At the top of the pass, I took a break and a large group of a dozen ATV riders came through. They were pretty spread out and each one stopped right next to where I was sitting, while running their loud and smelly exhaust, which was a pretty dick move. The last two riders were better and just continued past, but they also had quiet electric ATVs so they’re probably just more considerate people. I didn’t see anybody else the rest of the day and the descent into the valley was in a cool little Aspen forest.

Since I got lower in elevation, the trees disappeared as usual.

Lots of nice green scenery, and the thunderclouds didn’t seem to be as aggressive today.

I had to get creative to keep my feet dry while getting across the little creek, it was the only tricky crossing all day.

A bunch of tributary streams converged into one main stem, Birch Creek. It started to feel canyon-esque with all of the rocks nearby, I really liked this area.

This spot marked the end of this section in the guidebook, from here I will hike a 9-mile spur route out to the town of Austin to resupply. I ended up hiking over a mile up the spur route before I found a suitable camping spot, so it will be a pretty short day tomorrow morning.