Sunday August 24, 21.0mi/33.8km

Jarbidge River Overlook (8.2/5600ft) to ICT Southern Terminus (0.0/5990ft) (ID) to Jarbidge River (x/5650ft) (NV)

I was awake again at 5:30 and hiking before 6am, this time it wasn’t for heat reasons but because I was very thirsty and wanted to get to water sooner.

It was a flat easy 5 miles to the junction to Jarbidge canyon.

Today was a very cloudy day so the sunrise was muted and a little strange looking.

From the Jarbidge canyon junction, it was another 2 miles to the southern Terminus of the Idaho Centennial Trail.

The Southern Terminus of the ICT is, of course, at the state line with Nevada. Which means there is a fence there and a marker, and apparently also a cow.

I had to get a photo by the marker, it’s just an orange metal post in the middle of the desert. Not quite as scenic as the northern Terminus of Priest Falls.

I finished taking photos, said goodbye to the cows, and backtracked the 2 miles to the Jarbidge canyon junction.

Back at the junction. I took the dirt road down into the canyon, which was surprisingly scenic.

A couple miles later I was at the bottom of the canyon, in a tiny village called Murphy Hot Springs. There were probably a couple dozen little houses, some gardens, and some kitschy signs.

I couldn’t access the Jarbidge River right away, due to all the private property. But a guy out doing some yardwork saw me walking, and offered me some water from his spigot. Very nice! I wasn’t looking forward to having to use my ruined filter, it’s been super slow ever since filtering all that cow water. I surprised myself and drank a whole liter almost instantly, and then refilled another 3 liters for the 15 miles to Jarbidge. The rest of the day was hiking along the creek.

There were three little BLM campgrounds along the way, somebody had left a beer on one of the picnic tables. Too bad it was an IPA. Pass.

I had lunch at Jarbidge forks, which is where all the whitewater rafters and kayakers put into the river. It’s supposed to be a difficult and technical river, I can’t imagine anyone rafting this, it looked slow and shallow.

I spent the rest of the afternoon hiking very gradually uphill on a dirt road towards the town of Jarbidge. I could have easily hiked to town today, but the post office is only open on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. So I took my time enjoying all the scenic hoodoos along the way.

I found a great little camp spot right next to the Jarbidge River, which is really more of a creek, but it’s great to see water again.

It was only 4pm so I relaxed and swam in the creek, took a nap, read my book, and then it was finally dinner time. I was so focused on getting to water this morning, I didn’t really process that I had finished hiking across Idaho. It was a great state to see up close and on foot, and I think overall it’s an underrated place to explore. In Idaho, the Hot Springs Trail followed the ICT, but now that I’m in Nevada, it will once again follow its own routing. It will take me about a week of hiking to re-connect my steps and arrive in Lamoille, the town where I left off back in June.