Tuesday July 1, 28.5mi/45.9km
Fault Lake (943.4/6080ft) to Round Mt State Forest (914.9/2250ft) (ID)
Fault Lake was an amazing campsite, and I woke up when the sun hit my tent at 5:15. There was a pretty nice descent trail, it started off in an Alpine meadow.
It was easy to follow, even on the big slabs of rock, where there were plentiful cairns.
The morning light in the mountains just feels so cheerful.
I crossed this little stream, which slid down big granite slabs.
After the stream, the trail became an old two-track road, and despite being a little brushy was remarkably easy to follow.
After a couple hours I was at the trailhead, where I refilled my water from the stream. Sometimes the guidebook is less than clear on how far the next water is. There is a little shortcut to connect two dirt roads, which involved a decommissioned road. It repeated the theme of being easy to follow, but a little brushy.
At one point it was carpeted in thousands of these little white flowers.
After a little creative routefinding, I made it down to the main dirt road. From here I decided to hike up and over the next mountain range. The official route is a long road walk, down to the town of Samuels, and involves much paved roadwalking. Fortunately the guidebook has an alternate that completely avoids this and goes directly up and over the next mountain range, using forestry and logging roads. I had a nice break in the shade, under a bridge over the Pack River.
The rest of the day was hiking on disused dirt roads. I progress gradually uphill for a couple hours.
At the top of the climb there was a nice little riparian pond area, where I had lunch.
The forestry roads traversed along the forested ridgeline, it was a hot day and I appreciated being in the shade almost the entire day.
I descended the other side of the mountain range, where the roads entered some active logging areas. It was fascinating seeing such a large operation being operated by just a few pieces of equipment and two people.
Looking back to the ridge I had just hiked over, which is called Roman nose.
At some points, the forest was perfectly intact on one side of the road and completely clear-cut on the other.
On the final part of the descent I could see into the valley, which I would be traversing tomorrow to the small town of Naples.
I hiked about a mile of the valley, which had quite a few little farms. There were animals everywhere, including turkeys and goats.
I made it to a little square of state-owned land, where I could legally camp. At this low elevation it was pretty warm, and while I considered cowboy camping, the hordes of mosquitoes quickly put an end to that thought. I rapidly set up my tent in the forest, and ducked inside to hide away from all the flying vampires.
It was a pretty easy day, even considering all the mileage.