Monday September 1, 27.0mi/43.5km

Secret-Starr Trail (x/7660ft) to Pass above Soldier Creek (1089.9/9480ft) (NV)

After looking at my maps last night, I realized that with all my detours I had made only 14 miles forward progress. Darn. Usually it doesn’t matter much if I’m behind on mileage, but this is my last section in Nevada and I had already scheduled a rental car and motel. So I woke up extra early and was hiking before 6am, following the line on the map but never finding the Secret-Starr Trail.

As I approached Fourth Boulder Creek, I was a little nervous I wouldn’t be able to get through the thick aspens, but fortunately I found a cow path that went through.

From there, it was a slow mile of weaving through sagebrush to get to Third Boulder Creek, where I also found the third Boulder Creek Trail. All my maps showed the Secret-Starr trail getting better after this point, but I didn’t find anything except thick aspens. I could see that the trail traversed an Aspen-choked north slope for the next mile, so I decided to change course and follow the third Boulder Creek Trail downstream, and see where that led. It quickly became a two-track road at the Wilderness boundary.

I had mapped out a series of two-track roads that would reconnect me to the Secret-Starr Trail again in 4 miles, which was the only legal exit from the national forest, since it’s landlocked by private land.

The detour worked great (as I knew it would) having mapped it using Google satellite view. What my maps didn’t show is that in recent years some land swaps had taken place, and small pieces of (formerly) public land were now fenced off by a few different ranches. Ducking under barbed wire fences is no fun. Finally, after 3 hours of dirt road walking I reconnected back to the Secret-Starr Trail.

I was so happy to see that it existed here, satellite view showed a well-worn trail, but sometimes those images are outdated.

So I hiked the last 4 miles of the Secret-Starr Trail, all downhill, to a trailhead at a paved highway.

From there, it was an easy 2 miles of hiking on a deserted paved road, to the Gardner Creek Trailhead. I was so happy to be out of the East Humboldt mountains, and all its overgrown trails. And even more excited to be re-entering the Ruby mountains!

It started off up an easy but steep 4wd road. It was already 3pm, but I continued on and committed to hiking this XC section before dark. I hiked up 2,500 ft in 2 miles, definitely steep terrain but it was easy XC hiking with minimal brush.

And once I was on top of the ridge it was absolutely amazing!

This is one of my favorite types of hiking, traversing epic ridgelines. And I didn’t even have to worry about brush or rocks!

I thought the low angle of the late afternoon sun really made some surreal views, especially down into the Lemoille Valley.

I followed this amazing ridgeline for over an hour.

Looking back North, to the East Humboldt mountains where I had just come from this morning:

This ridgewalk was amazing, one of my favorite parts of the entire HST in Nevada. I didn’t want it to end but it was going to be dark soon.

There were some little craggy sections of rock that were easy to hike around, and they were also interesting formations.

Since I barely had to watch my feet, I got to enjoy the sunset views all around me.

At the end of the XC section, I was pleasantly surprised to find a very nice trail that led off the ridge.

The guidebook had described it as a “vague game trail”, but it was definitely a constructed trail, and one of the best I had seen in weeks. I found a spot to camp at the very end of the ridgeline, protected by some junipers.

For such a terrible morning of hiking, the afternoon of alpine XC hiking more than made up for it. And I even caught up on most of my mileage, though it was a very tough day.

Tomorrow is just a quick 18 mile hike to town, all downhill!