Wednesday July 23, 21.4mi/34.4km

Warm Springs Bar (498.0/3890ft) to Grouse Creek (476.6/4690ft) (ID)

It was a damp night camping down by Running Creek, I knew I would be drying my tent again at lunch today. I packed up and walked through the outfitters camp, searching for the trail. I forded the creek, and searched the forest on the other side, but only found a few animal trails. A few past hikers also had trouble finding the trail, and I really wanted to find it but after 20 minutes I gave up. I walked the road around, which added about a mile.

I saw where the missing trail met the road on the other side, it was a clear and well- used trail. Definitely harder to find for southbound hikers, and the guidebook wasn’t any help either since it’s written for the northbound direction. I had another pleasant hour of hiking a gradual ascent on the dirt road, eventually I turned off on the Lynx Creek Trail.

I knew it traveled through several large burn areas so I was expecting some fallen trees and brushy undergrowth, much to my pleasant surprise, I found little of either.

There were even a few pockets of green forest, which was a nice break from the hot sun.

After 3 miles I got to Lynx meadow, and a hunters’ camp.

It was a cool little spot and I spent some time checking out the old artifacts.

There was even a metal sign nailed to a tree with a bunch of names signed on it from 50 years ago.

But when I went to leave the camp that’s when things got confusing. There was a web of mediocre trails leaving the camp, the only good trail was the one I entered on. The guidebook was no help again, so I had to try each faint trail, one led to an old privy, one led to a woodshed, the other led nowhere, and the last one turned out to be the correct trail. After I left the brushy meadow, it was actually a decent trail.

The ICT is known for having some sections of rough and overgrown trail, but really its main issue is lack of good trail data. With a good GPS track and some waypoints, I could avoid all the navigation confusion. The Lynx Trail did have one section for about a mile with young pine trees trying to take over the trail in a burn area.

But the trail was easy to follow, and pretty soon I was at the other end where it joined another dirt road.

The whole forest is pretty burned, so when I stopped for lunch I didn’t even try to find a shady spot. Fortunately up at 6,800 ft it’s not very hot. After a couple easy miles on the road I turned off onto Bargamin Creek Trail.

Basically the entire trail was in a burn area except the very end, and it was mostly in good shape. Much better than I expected given the amount of burn it traveled through.

It was a hot afternoon and I was glad to be hiking downhill, gradually dropping off the ridge to Bargamin Creek.

I arrived at Poet Creek campground, and I spent awhile chatting with a very nice group of bikers, who are also riding the BDR, just like the group I met at Lochsa Lodge. Their route basically parallels mine but it takes dirt roads, and it will only take them about 1.5 weeks. They had a similar sense of humor as me and after sharing some beers (that cold Deschutes tasted so good!), I gave one of them a trail name. They were even nice enough to take my trash, since I won’t have a way to dispose of it at Campbell’s ferry (where I pick up my next resupply box). As I was saying goodbye and leaving, a group of three mountain bikers rode up who are also doing a similar route. Popular campground!

I crossed the Magruder corridor Road, which means I finished the Selway-Bitterroot section. That moment felt good. It was a tough 100 miles. The Bargamin Creek Trail continued across the road, following the creek in its descent to the Salmon River.

It was a pretty decent trail too, I hope that continues all the way down to the Salmon River.

I’ll follow the Bargamin Creek for 13 more miles tomorrow and then I’ll hike along the Salmon River a day. I’m in the Frank Church Wilderness, it’s massive!

Tuesday July 22, 20.8mi/33.5km

Ridge above Bitch Lake (518.3/6910ft) to Warm Springs Bar (498.0/3890ft) (ID) +0.5mi looking for junctions

I awoke to one of the coolest weather phenomena and one of my favorites, the undercast clouds.

It had rained pretty good last night for about 4 hours, so even though I shook off most of the water, I knew I would be making an extended lunch stop to dry my stuff. I was all packed up and ready to hike and then… I couldn’t find the trail junction. I have three different versions of maps downloaded and according to all of them, it should be right where I was camped. Ugh. So I walked a few minutes backtracking to check that I hadn’t missed it yesterday, nothing. And then I hiked a quarter mile further down the trail getting increasingly unsure that I would ever find it… and there it was, 0.3 miles from where it was supposed to be.

I continued to follow the Moose Ridge Trail all morning, except today it was actually nice trail.

I traveled through a half mile of burn section, where the trail was easy to follow, I just had to step over lots of fallen logs.

At least most of them were small and easy to step over. Pretty soon the burn area ended and then the sun even came out, warming the very chilly morning.

The next trail junction was exactly where it was supposed to be but the signs were a little hard to read.

I hiked over a pass and descended down toward Goat Creek, and most of the area was burned. But this time the trail seemed like it had recently been maintained and there were very few logs to step over.

And some massive mushrooms were growing also.

After crossing Goat Creek, I was out of the burn area, and followed Long Prairie Creek upstream for a while before I stopped for lunch.

I was surprised at how nice the trail was all afternoon, a friend had recently told me I should do more complaining in my journal but today didn’t give me much to complain about. Later in the afternoon I finally turned off the Moose Ridge Trail which I have been following since yesterday at the ranger station. There was a steep climb up the Grouse Ridge Trail, and then apparently I was following the Wilderness boundary for the next few hours.

It was a roller coaster of a trail going steeply up and down a couple of times, but always on good trail. I enjoyed seeing all the cool rock formations, I think it’s the same rock type as in Joshua Tree NP.

And the views of the Continental divide in the distant East were pretty amazing.

I turned onto the Patrol Ridge Trail, which started a long gradual descent, with an initial steep one.

And I was still on a pretty good trail the rest of the day.

There was an unsigned junction near the bottom of the descent, I was pretty sure it led to a hot spring, so I followed the trail and it did! It was a nice little homemade rock enclosure, almost a mile off the main trail. Pretty sweet little spot. The mosquitoes were starting to awaken, so after a quick soak I backtracked to the main trail and continued to its end at an outfitters camp.

I didn’t want to continue on because camping spots would be hard to come by in the next few miles, so I camped in a flat spot near the outfitters, next to Running Creek. I enjoyed an earlier evening in my tent with some nice spicy dinner.

Monday July 21, 21.6mi/34.8km

North Fork Moose Creek (539.9/2760ft) to Ridge above Bitch Lake (518.3/6910ft) (ID)

I packed up from my cozy little spot in the Cedar forest, and had another couple hours of hiking along North Fork Moose Creek.

I was beginning to think it never rained in Idaho, but then it rained lightly for about an hour, which was enough to make all the plants very wet, which soaked me on the overgrown Trail. There was even a short section of blowdowns when the trail passed through a small burn section, and that went pretty slowly given how slippery all the logs were. The views of the river were unbeatable though.

After a couple hours, I entered a wide flat valley where the two forks of the Moose Creek converge, and hiked through a beautiful forest full of soaking wet ferns.

As I got closer to the East Fork of the Moose Creek, the trail quality started to improve.

I was pretty excited to see fewer wet plants lining the path.

The bridge over the East Fork Moose Creek was truly impressive.

From there I had just over an hour of pleasant hiking through a very burned valley, down to the Moose Creek Ranger Station.

There’s a bunch of backcountry outfitters and stock camps in this valley so they tend to keep the trail pretty well maintained.

The ranger station was an entire complex of buildings to support the operation.

There was a stables, a couple residences, a storage room, a laundry building, and a building for the airstrip. And of course a visitor office.

As I was reading the trail report (they keep a huge list of which year that each of their hundreds of trails were cleared!) the ranger came in from the other room and started chatting. It was lunchtime, and she offered that I could eat in front of the nice warm woodstove as it was a chilly wet day. Sweet. We ended up chatting for almost an hour about lots of trail stuff, turns out she’s pretty well connected to the ITA, Idaho Trails Association. As I was finishing my lunch, she also offered me a big slice of Huckleberry pie, a refill on my water, and a quick charge for my phone. It was an unexpectedly fantastic lunch. Pretty soon though, I had to head out into the gray day.

Walking the airstrip felt kind of funny, and there are recreational planes that land here a couple times a week. A mile later, and I was crossing the massive Selway River.

It rained lightly on and off for a couple hours, but that didn’t really bother me. The overgrown Moose Ridge Trail got me completely soaked, although the rain shell and rain skirt certainly helped. I couldn’t take any photos for a while as my lens was wet. I was able to capture one of this very cold, sad wet snake.

The ranger had pointed out how lucky I was to do this big 5000-ft climb on a cool cloudy day, as it’s usually hot and exposed on this ridge. Which is true but I was still wishing for a warmer day, as it was pretty chilly by the time I climbed up to 6,000 ft. These thimbleberries were especially effective, dumping all their rainwater on me.

Once I got up to the top of Moose Ridge at 7,000 ft, the trail became quite a bit better. Not because it was better maintained, just because there were fewer plants to grow up at this elevation.

After 6pm the clouds started to clear out, and the views became pretty impressive.

Looking to the West, where peeks of sun were highlighting some of the Bitterroot mountains.

It was tricky to find a spot to camp that wasn’t in dead forest that wanted to fall over and kill me, but eventually I found a flat grassy meadow above Bitch Lake.

What a long and tiring wet day. I’m starting to think there’s not going to be an easy day of hiking in the Selway section. Only 37 miles more until the Magruder Road, which is the end of this section.

Sunday July 20, 23.2mi/37.3km

Ridge above Rhoda Creek (563.1/6410ft) to North Fork Moose Creek (539.9/2760ft) (ID)

I woke up to a cold morning and started hiking with my insulated vest on. The trail weaved around little bumps on the ridge top and was pretty enjoyable.

Looking down on Shasta Lake.

And then then walking around its shoreline, which was quite buggy.

The next set of lakes I came to was called Two Lakes. There is a little side trail that loops around them, which apparently is not maintained. And to really make their point, the sign is on the ground and not on a post.

Looking south down the Rhoda Creek Valley.

For the last lake, I traversed high above it.

The trail was mostly pretty nice, but occasionally this little Alpine bush would obscure the tread, since it grows pretty thick.

Looking back at the ridgeline I just traversed, and the lake far below.

Some trail crew did some impressive rock work here.

After a couple of hours I left the ridgeline trail and turned off onto the disturbingly named Wounded Doe Creek Trail.

The guidebook had warned that the trail might be brushy and slow going. That might have been true back when there was a trail. I was able to find a very faint trail tread for the first quarter mile, and then it simply disappeared into the forest.

So for the next 3 hours I bushwhacked the 2.5 mile trail corridor, never actually finding any trail but occasionally finding some evidence that there was a trail, including a couple of Cairns and some sawed logs. Given that no humans ever travel this way, this snake was quite surprised to see me.

Sometimes when there was a meadow the bushwhacking was easy and I was able to move quickly.

As I was bushwhacking I thought how nice it would be to have a trail. As I analyzed the situation, I realized a trail is just a brush-free corridor that allows for easy navigation and faster travel. This non-existent trail parallels Wounded Doe Creek, so I decided to just walk in the creek. That worked okay but it wasn’t much faster since the rocks were slippery and I had to be careful. Eventually I exited when I saw another meadow since those are fast traveling.

At the very end of the bushwhack I was just a minute from the trail junction when I saw this really old saw leaning up against a tree. Very strange.

A very faint trail had come over the pass from Fish Lake, and after I passed that junction I had clear trail again.

The simple joys.

The rest of the Wounded Doe Creek Trail was fairly nice hiking, and I was excited for the next trail which I assumed would be even better. I was wrong, the Rhoda Creek Trail traveled through a burn area, with lots of fallen trees.

One of the fallen trees I was able to use to my advantage since it laid directly on top of the trail, so I just hiked along the top of it.

That 3 mile trail took me a couple of hours, and by the time I hit the Moose Creek Trail it was late afternoon. As soon as I turned onto that trail I had to ford its namesake creek.

I hiked alongside the North Fork Moose Creek for an hour, constantly looking for a campsite, but the trail was benched into a steep hillside.

I was getting slightly worried since darkness was approaching, but at the last minute I found a tiny flat spot tucked into a copse of cedar trees. Perfect.

Saturday July 19, 18.1mi/29.1km

Gateway Campground (581.2/2105 ft) to Ridge above Rhoda Creek (563.1/6410ft) (ID)

I was up at 5am with the sun, and my watch gave me a nice birthday message.

The lodge insists on using Mountain time, even though they are actually in Pacific time. This confuses basically everybody there, the restaurant opened at 7am for breakfast, but which 7am was it? The bikers I was camping with decided to go over at 6am, which the lodge was calling 7am, so they got served breakfast and brought me back half of a waffle and some bacon. Sweet. I went back out to the road to hitch, it took me about an hour and a half before a nice guy named Randy picked me up and drove me all the way to the Wilderness Gateway campground. It was a 45-minute drive so I didn’t start hiking until 10:30. I crossed over the massive Lochsa River, and then entered the campground.

The trailhead was at the back of the campground so I had to walk 15 minutes along various paved roads. The trailhead had one of those neat carved wooden signs, that showed the entire wilderness.

For the first 5 miles the trail was very nice.

After about an hour, I officially entered the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. I love seeing these Wilderness signs, and it’s a little surprising that I’ve already hiked 420 miles of the Idaho Centennial Trail before seeing my first such sign. The nice trail continued…

… All the way to the Stanley hot springs.

There were six or seven different pools, all created by stacked rocks. Three of the pools were large and very clean looking so I used one of those to soak in for a little while, while I also enjoyed lunch.

It’s also surprising to me that I’ve hiked 420 miles from the Canadian border on the ICT / Hot Springs Trail, and this is the first Hot Spring I’ve come to. It was a very nice hot spring and eventually I pulled myself away from it and continued on up the mountain. Immediately after leaving the hot springs, the trail became much less maintained.

Towards the top of the big 4000-ft climb, it entered a burn area which was annoying to step over all the fallen trees.

But I could tell this was still a popular trail, as each of the fallen trees had all of its branches broken off so it was easy to step over, or it had a well-worn herdpath going around it. At the top of the climb, I came around the corner of a ridge and then I was in lake territory. Lottie Lake:

And less than a mile later, Little Lottie Lake.

Where there’s water, there are snakes.

Every mile or so I hit another lake, this was one of the Seven lakes.

And then I had another thousand-foot climb up to the top of Stanley Butte.

Pretty sweet views from the top. The mountains to the South still had a little bit of snow on their shadowy North faces.

Up at 7,300 ft. elevation I could see in every direction.

I descended down to Shasta Lake, where there were forms of wildlife blocking my path.

I passed by several trail junctions, and most of them had the signs on the ground. Can the Clearwater National Forest not afford posts?

Even though I had more daylight and more miles I could cover, after I looked at my watch I decided to stop and camp in a little little saddle above Rhoda Creek.

My watch showed almost 7,000 vertical feet ascended today… oops.

That was definitely not my intent, but I’m going to sleep well tonight.

Friday July 18, 0mi/0km

Gateway Campground (581.2/2105 ft) to Gateway Campground (581.2/2105ft) (ID)

I had a productive morning at the motel, getting another shower, unwrapping all my new gear, and fitting 7 days of food inside a bear canister. When I went to do laundry the laundry room was empty, like there were no machines to use. I asked at the front desk and the lady was super nice and said she would just do it for me in her commercial washers. While that was running, I packed up my new backpack, each one packs slightly differently and it’s a learning process.

I finally left the motel at 11am, went next door to the post office to mail my old backpack back to the manufacturer, and then took the bus across town back to the REI. Most backpacks that I’ve recently had are made of a waterproof material, but not this one. So I had to buy a pack cover in case it rains. I grabbed a quick last meal at Wendy’s, and then got an Uber to Lolo, a small village at the edge of town. I had planned on hitching from there down Highway 12, but the Uber driver said he was bored and I was very entertaining, and he drove me another 30 miles to Lochsa Lodge.

That seemed pretty lucky and now I had some extra time so I ordered an early dinner.

A huge bowl of elk chili and a large Bavarian pretzel really hit the spot, then I wandered over to the general store to give my phone one last charge, there was an outlet next to the pay phone.

Yes, there was a working pay phone. Also some funny stickers on it, which I feel will be applicable to my life real soon.

Then at 6pm I walked down the driveway to the entrance to hitch to the Wilderness Gateway campground, where the trail resumes.

I stood there for 2 hours, even wore bright colored clothing to look friendly and had a sign. But there were so few cars going by, maybe one every 5 minutes, and most of them seemed to be going the other direction. Finally a little after 8pm I called it quits and walked back to the lodge where they allow hikers/bikers to camp on the lawn. I’ll try again early tomorrow morning!

Thursday July 17, 8.1mi/13.0km

No-see-um Meadows (589.3/5890ft) to Gateway Campground (581.2/2105 ft) (ID)

I left camp at 6:30 and packed up my backpack which seemed to have only a few more miles of life left in it.

The Sherman Creek Trail was over 7 miles all downhill to the Lochsa River, and it was barely brushy at all.

It actually stayed pretty high above the river and frequently had good views to the South, of the mountains I would be hiking tomorrow.

There was one little meadow that was completely overgrown and in the morning dew felt like a cold wet car wash.

Mostly the trail went through an enjoyable, mature Forest.

I got one last glimpse of the upcoming mountains, before I made the final descent to the trailhead parking area.

I crossed highway 12, made it to the Wilderness Gateway campground, and immediately started trying to hitch a ride into Missoula, over 90 miles away.

After only 20 minutes the sixth car stopped to pick me up, Rob & Angie were on their way to a music festival up in whitefish MT. They were super nice and generous people, and I had great conversation with them the entire 2 hours I was in the car. At one point it came up in conversation that I was only stopping at Lochsa Lodge to pick up a resupply box, and then immediately continuing to Missoula. They very generously offered to pull into the lodge while I got my package, and then we all continued on, even stopping for lunch at a charming little bar, the Jack saloon.

After 8 days of backpacking food, the burger and beer really hit the spot. They dropped me off directly at the REI where I immediately went shopping for a backpack. Not finding one in my size, I got an Uber to downtown Missoula to the other camping store. I didn’t find the pack there either. But I did find ice cream next door.

Walking through downtown Missoula and Higgins Street is always entertaining and there’s lots of good people watching and interesting artwork.

At this point I was getting low on options to get a replacement backpack today, I even scoured the local Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist ads. I got a phone call from the very helpful guy at REI saying he didn’t find a men’s small backpack, but he found something of equivalent size, so I went back to REI and bought a bright yellow backpack. By now it was getting late in the day and my plan to hitch back to the Wilderness the same day was not going to happen, so I got a local motel. It was brand new remodeled, but in an old-timey way.

Inside my food resupply box my parents had included a birthday card, that was very nice. The little things.

It was time to eat again, so I went a couple blocks away to Gary’s Local Burgers which had $6 burgers and actual good Coke, the kind from Mexico with real sugar.

And then I went to the grocery store to pick up a couple extra things like more wet wipes, new water bottles, and I found a 50% off birthday cake. Nice little motel celebration.

I did a bunch of phone chores and then watched some Stephen Colbert, it’s a shame that they will be canceling one of the best comedians for some pretty shadowy reasons. Tomorrow is back to trail!

Wednesday July 16, 19.4mi/31.2km

Monroe Butte (609.3/6350ft) to No-see-um Meadows (589.3/5890ft) (ID) -0.6mi skip Liz Cabin

I woke up in a damp meadow to a wet and cold tent. I spent a few minutes trying to dry out the inside but knew I’d have to dry everything out at lunch. I had a nice trail for the first half mile of the day.

As soon as I turned onto the Windy Creek Trail it became a little overgrown, and I could tell it was maintained and used far less frequently than the nice Windy Bill Trail I had been on.

At the higher elevations it wasn’t so bad, as there were just fewer plants available to reclaim the trail. But after I descended a thousand feet, the trail became more overgrown.

But at least it was still easily followable 99% of the time. Only a couple times in big meadows did I lose the trail tread and have to find it on the other side.

There actually weren’t many blowdowns, and I could walk at almost my usual pace when the trail wasn’t approaching a little stream or waterway. When it got within 100 ft of water, the plants grew like crazy and I just had to wade slowly through the entangled ferns and bear grass.

Finally, after 4 hours of effort I had made it the 9 miles to Weitas Creek bridge. Down here the trail seemed to be a little better used and I followed nice tread for a half mile until I stopped for lunch on the bridge.

It was pretty hot down here at 3,000 ft, so I sat in the shade on one end of the bridge while my tent and gear dried in the sunny part of the bridge. I took up the entire bridge with my stuff, there’s nothing like a good ol’ bridge yard sale. Plus there’s no way anybody was coming through here, I was hours from reasonably good trail, and even further from a trailhead. After lunch I packed up and quickly found the junction to the Yokum Creek Trail.

The distances on those signs are often full of lies, as they don’t account for the many switchbacks. Turns out it was closer to 3.5 mi to the Liz Butte Trail, and 6 mi to the top of Liz Butte. I wish I had taken a photo of the trail junction, it was comical that the trail I was turning on to was almost non-existent, and the trail tread was blanketed in thick moss. It cleared up considerably as I climbed higher on pretty nice switchbacks, and above the riparian plants in the valley. After a couple hours I made it to the junction, where the sign was being swallowed by a tree.

As I got higher up I was traversing meadows more frequently, which were beautiful to walk through with all the paintbrush growing this time of year.

The downside of meadows is that they sometimes make a faint trail impossible to follow, but I only lost the trail once and found it after only 5 minutes of searching the forest. This was probably the strangest piece of trail trash I’ve ever encountered.

The last mile was through an area that was severely burned, so there wasn’t much brush but there were plenty of downed trees.

Finally, at 4pm I arrived at a dirt road, with much relief and fanfare. I thought it was cool, and also a little ironic, that the only sign I’ve seen for the Idaho Centennial Trail is on the brushiest trail I’ve hiked yet.

The roadwalk was pleasant and easy, apparently it’s also the Nez Perce National historic Trail, and the Lewis and Clark Trail.

I arrived at a trailhead at 6 pm, and it seemed too late in the day to continue down 8-mile Sherman Creek Trail, which descended 4,000 ft down a steep valley, and probably had no camping options. So I set up my tent at the edge of the forest, and afterwards noticed this sign. Eek.

While the meadow did have a few of those bugs, it had far more mosquitoes. I enjoyed a couple hours of relaxation protected in my tent, and looking at maps for the next section in the Selway mountains. I also made a plan to deal with my rapidly deteriorating Durston backpack, one of the hip belt straps was slowly ripping off of the pack frame. It definitely wasn’t going to last another 300 miles to Stanley (the next town), so when I get to Highway 12 tomorrow morning, I will hitch almost 90 miles East to Missoula, which has an REI. What a pain.

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!

Monday July 14, 27.6mi/44.4km

Unnamed Alpine Lake (661.4/6070ft) to Kelly Creek Trailhead (633.8/3170ft) (ID/MT)

I had a quiet night at my little Alpine Lake, which looked even better in the sunrise than it did in the evening.

There were some mosquitoes hanging out but I quickly left them behind after only a half mile of uphill hiking, when I came over a small pass and into a new valley.

I hiked this neat ridgeline for a little bit, with views down into two valleys at once.

The section of the Stateline Trail seemed to be less used and was a little brushy.

Pretty soon I could see down into Kid lake.

I thought about swimming in Kid Lake but it was still too cold this early in the morning.

After many days on the Stateline Trail, I would finally be leaving it. At Kid Lake, I turned onto the Kelly Creek Trail, leaving the Idaho/ Montana border and entering the depths of Idaho.

I started the long gradual descent down into the Kelly Creek Valley, where I would be remaining for the rest of the day. It always fascinates me when trees grow like this, I have no idea why and it was funny to see so many at once.

The Kelly Creek Trail seems to be well constructed and had a nice trail tread, though much of the time it was a little buried in the short brush that was trying to take over.

I’ve been up high on a ridgeline for so long, I forgot that crossing tributaries was a thing.

I managed to keep my feet dry, although after a few more such crossings I gave up trying. After only a few miles, I could hear the creek next to me getting louder and louder as it gained more tributaries. By lunch time I had made it down a few thousand feet, and arrived at an outfitters camp. It was the only spot where the trail was wide and not brushy, so I had lunch on a little bridge.

There wasn’t anyone on site at their outfitters camp, but I explored the area and found a clever way to keep their beverages cold, a metal box in a cold creek!

Soon after I left that spot I came to a very large wooden bridge, probably constructed by the Outfitters to get their horses and mules across these little tributaries.

The rest of the day I followed Kelly Creek downstream, as it slowly gained size.

The trail steadily improved too, as more people used it lower in the valley where it was closer to the trailhead.

After a couple of hours, I came to another Outfitters camp where I ran into two guys taking a break on their camp chairs. Chuck and Jackie were up here for the week on a fishing trip, and had driven all the way from the Boise area. They were really entertaining to talk to, and even though I know very little about fishing, we had much in common. They knew about the Idaho Centennial Trail, and were more familiar with the sections further south near Atlanta Hot Springs, closer to where they live. I lost track of the time but eventually continued on, enjoying all these nice little bridges.

The valley went into shade pretty early, which was nice as it instantly cooled down.

The trail stayed a little above Kelly Creek most of the time, with nice views of a pretty large river.

I had planned to stop after 22 miles, but couldn’t find any spots in the thick riparian brush. So I kept hiking to the trailhead where I knew there would be a large flat clearing. It was a long day but I made it there by 7:30. It feels very damp, I hope I don’t get too much condensation in the tent tonight.