Sunday July 13, 26.0mi/41.8kmGraves Peak saddle (687.4/7220ft) to Unnamed Alpine Lake (661.4/6070ft) (ID/MT)I had a great little camp spot and when I woke up this morning there were no mosquitoes, surprising, but I’ll take it. Walking along the ridge in the morning light was a great start to the day.Looking down at St Joe Lake:These Bitterroot Mountains are a huge range. I have been hiking through them for days, and can still see endless mountain ridges in the distance.In mid-morning I crossed over Hoodoo Pass, and I was surprised to see a wide gravel road almost like a highway. And I was more surprised to see over a dozen cars in the trailhead parking lot. The guidebook says this would be a difficult hitch to a town in Montana, 25 miles away, but it seems like it might be rather easy, and a great place to break up a long section. There was a short climb after the pass, where I talked to two ladies for a while about the ICT / HST, they had so many fun questions, and at one point even offered me a ride to the town. That might have been fun but I’m not backtracking 2 miles, and also I already have all the food I need for this 175 mile section. Pretty soon I was back up on the ridgeline, and looking down at alpine lakes all afternoon.That was Heart Lake, though I think it should be called Kidney Lake, due to its shape.Yup, definitely kidney lake. Around this time the bugs started to become pretty bad, I hadn’t seen so many different types of flies all swarming at once. They only bothered me when I was stopped or trying to take a break, when I was hiking/moving there was almost nothing. Weird. I came around a switchback corner, and heard some hooves. Usually this means deer or maybe an elk, I was incredibly surprised to see this big fluffy white goat standing there staring at me.It did not move. Like, not even 1 inch. So I carefully walked in a circle around him. Further down the ridge I came to Dalton Lake, which seems like this should be called Heart Lake.Just lots of beautiful ridge walking on the Stateline Trail again today.I never figured out the pattern with the bugs, I tried taking breaks in Sunny spots, shady spots, forested, grassy, nothing seemed to help. The first minute or two after I stopped was fine and then somehow they would all discover my presence and just hang out with me. Ugh. This part of the ridge had a little more wind and kept most of the bugs away but not all of them.More alpine lakes:One of the two Siamese lakes:The last part of the ridge walking was a little easier, as the trail decided to go around the bumps instead of over them.There had been some recent trail maintenance done in this section so it was a nice cruise down to Fish Lake. Fish Lake must be a popular camping area as there were about a half-dozen campsites, all numbered with posts. I stopped at one to sit on the bench and take a break, and noticed that some idiot had left their campfire still smoking a little bit. So I poured a bunch of water on it.It was a nice little break spot, I filled my water bottles in the lake, ate a bunch of snacks and waited to make sure the campfire was really dead.Fish Lake:It was only 5pm so I decided to push on another couple hours to camp at another lake. The Stateline trail climbed up to a saddle, where it split with another trail. That was the “original ICT”, but the guidebook recommended an alternate that stays on the Stateline Trail so that’s what I did. The old trail markers were neat to see.After climbing to a second saddle, I descended through an ancient burned forest, down to an unnamed alpine lake.There was a beautiful little camp spot near the outlet of the lake, perfect. By now the flies had disappeared, only to be replaced by mosquitoes. But surprisingly, the mosquitoes weren’t too bad given that I was camped next to a swampy lake.