Wednesday July 9, 10.4mi/16.7km

Upper Glidden Lake (766.9/5910ft) to Mullan (756.5/3270ft) (ID)

I was visited in the night by an elk or a moose, I heard a large hoofed animal walking by, and then in the morning saw some big branches broken off nearby. The mosquitoes were still having their annual gathering so I packed up faster than usual and hiked uphill away from the lake.

The trail was very nice, but it was a little confusing that it didn’t appear on any of the several different maps that I had. After a mile of climbing I was back up on a ridgeline, and could see down to upper Glidden Lake.

And once I crossed over a small pass I could see the valley I would be descending into, including Interstate 90 and a small ski resort in the distance.

The endless rows of mountains here are just amazing to see.

Continuing my big 3,000 ft descent on a very nice trail.

I had a couple of enjoyable hours gradually descending down to the Little North Fork valley.

I emerged from the forest at a fish hatchery ! That was surprising, usually trails emerge at trailheads. The last couple of miles were along a paved road, but at least it went by a little town park where I could sit and take a break in the shade.

As I got closer to town, I passed by a huge operation for a mining company, and then a large State DOT maintenance facility with lots of beeping trucks. Finally I was in Mullan.

It was 10:30am, nothing was open yet and my bus didn’t come until 12:30. I killed some time wandering the little town, and when it was 11:00 I went to the only restaurant open in town, the Outlaw Bar and Grill.

Their pork chop burger was pretty good, and I’m surprised at how many places here have tater tots. After an early lunch I got on the bus and went down to Kellogg, which is a bigger town with a grocery store. I was staying at a little Airbnb room, and was pleasantly surprised to see all these stickers on the front door.

I had my own little part of the house, a bedroom, bathroom and TV room. The laundry room and kitchen are shared, the host was very nice and mostly gone all day at work nearby. I walked into town and did some quick resupply shopping and spent a couple hours planning out the next few legs of the trip. I’ll have one town stop in a week and then after that there won’t be any phone signal for a couple weeks…so I have to download everything and figure it out now. There wasn’t much of anything on TV, it seems like it’s mostly reruns during the summer, even Colbert’s late show. I went to bed a little later than usual, with a bunch of fans turned on high, there’s no AC here and it’s pretty warm down in the low elevations.