Saturday August 16, 19.9mi/32.0km

Willow Creek CG (169.4/4810ft) to Hunter Creek Transfer Camp (149.5/5450ft) (ID)

I got an earlier start at 6:45, to get up the big 2,000-ft climb before it got warm. I left the campground and a minute later I was crossing the South Fork Boise River.

Such a fancy bridge! I also noticed that there are frequent ICT markers now. And that I’m hiking towards Lime Creek, which sounds delicious.

I was on a very nice trail, which definitely helped, since I was climbing 2,000 ft in 3 miles.

Pretty soon the sun started to peek over the hillsides.

And a quick 30 minutes later and I was halfway up, and could see back down into the valley for the South Fork Boise River.

Once I was almost to the top, the trees disappeared and I was in sagebrush territory.

I followed along a ridgeline for a couple miles, and met a couple guys out scouting for hunting season in a couple weeks. They were looking for a specific type of quail, I told them I’ve seen many quail but I’d have no idea what flavor they are. Those birds are so annoying, hiding in the bushes until the last possible minute and then loudly flying out just before I walk by and causing a small heart attack. Pretty soon I joined a singletrack trail and dropped off the ridge. I could tell this ICT marker had been around for a while, the tree was starting to swallow it.

This trail isn’t in the wilderness, so dirtbikes are allowed to use it and it was quite dusty. No big deal, I’ll just rinse off in a creek later. The dusty trail also revealed footprints I might not otherwise see, including this bear.

The guidebook suggests taking an alternate higher trail up on a ridge to avoid this “riparian overgrown trail” but it looked perfectly great to me so I stuck with the main route.

The trail even had some fresh markers!

As I followed Lime Creek downstream all afternoon, I noticed the tributaries flowing into it were named for early presidents.

All afternoon I had only encountered three blowdowns and basically no brush, so the main route seemed perfectly fine.

Just as I got to the junction where the alternate route rejoined the main trail, a pair of dirtbikers rolled up behind me. They were very friendly and interested in whose footprints they were following all day…mine! They had also cleared the blowdowns that I saw, since they travel with a chainsaw and have the Forest Service Sawyer certification. Pretty awesome. They took off but I caught up to them a quarter mile later at a tricky creek crossing.

I crossed the creek on a log, which of course isn’t an option for them. They rode through 2-foot deep water, and it was very entertaining to see. They took off again and I had the trail to myself once more, now following the South Fork of Lime Creek.

Weirdly I saw a sheep, but only one sheep. They usually travel in flocks so it was a little creepy.

And right at the final creek crossing for the day, somebody had lost a pelvis.

I forwarded the South Fork Lime Creek, and made my way up the final small climb to my campsite.

These transfer camps seem to be for equine users to corral their horses, but they also make very serviceable campsites, since they usually have pit toilets and some picnic tables. This one was pretty dry and dusty so I set up my tent in the only grassy spot I could find.

As soon as I left the last creek today the trees disappeared, and I could tell looking across the flat landscape I probably wouldn’t see trees again for the rest of Idaho. I’m back in the desert!