Tuesday July 15, 26.4mi/42.5km

Kelly Creek Trailhead (633.8/3170ft) to Monroe Butte (609.3/6350ft) (ID) +1.9 Windy Bill trail

I packed up from my damp little camp spot down in a meadow next to the river, basically the worst camp spot possible, I spent a few minutes drying out my tent but I’ll have to dry stuff later in the full sun. I crossed Kelly Creek on a huge bridge, it’s funny they call it a creek, it’s basically a river at this point.

The first task of the day was to climb 3,000 vertical feet up to Scurvy mountain. The first half of the climb was easy on a gradual dirt road.

I saw some large canine prints in the mud next to the road, I was very curious what made them.

And 5 minutes later I saw the creature.

I was a little delayed in getting out the camera and taking a video, so I only got him running away. But he was large and very fluffy. Cool. The second half of the climb was on a trail, but it was a multi-use trail so it was wide for ATVs.

I was glad that the morning stayed cloudy and cool, so I didn’t have to do all this climbing in the hot sunlight. Plus the clouds gave the photos an interesting perspective.

Once I got to the top, I skipped the little side trail to the firetower since it was locked anyway, and continued on the Windy Bill Trail, basically following this ridgeline for the rest of the day.

So I went down 1400 ft….

And then hiked right back up that same amount.

Right to the top of Switchback Hill, which was very appropriately named.

I had lunch at the top of Switchback Hill, and checked my watch. I had hiked 5,000 vertical feet before noon, I’m going to feel that later in the day for sure. The rest of the ridgewalk was much flatter, and occasionally through these eerie feeling areas of dead forest.

There was supposed to be another 800-ft climb, but the trail had been rerouted to go around the mountain instead of over it, much to my relief. The guidebook recommends taking the old abandoned trail up and over the mountain anyway, but that was written in 2020 and five more years have passed, and by now nature has thoroughly reclaimed the old trail. I searched and couldn’t find where it had split off. The new trail was quite delightful other than a short half mile section of blowdown trees.

I continued through more of the eerie half-dead mossy forests.

And then finally a mature forest.

This was a confusing trail junction for several reasons.

It was not located where the map indicated, which actually has been happening a lot recently on the ICT. But also the trail numbers were slightly different, the sign says #167 but the map says #164. On the assumption that one of those was a typo, I continued on, and was eventually able to confirm I was correct. The last hour of the day was easy hiking on a nice trail, and I stopped to camp at the last moment before leaving the ridgeline.

I knew from here it was a 2000 ft descent, where there would be no camping options for a long time. But I’m camped at a pretty high elevation so it’s going to be a cold night!