Monday June 23, 24.7mi/39.8km

McCutcheon Creek (1038.0/8750ft) to North Furlong Creek (1062.7/9900ft) (NV)

I started off the day with a little more hiking in the aspen forest, everything has been so green lately, I’ve forgotten I’m hiking in a desert.

After climbing a little higher I get above the forest and get some views!

The trail goes up and down over a series of hills and every time it enters a drainage it gets a little overgrown. Fortunately there were cairns to mark the way.

Even a few stream crossings.

In many ways, the Ruby Mountains feel like a smaller version of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

There were so many little creek crossings and water sources, I never had to carry water for more than a couple of miles.

After climbing up out of the drainages, I was back on top of the ridgeline where it was nice and sunny.

I enjoyed a nice lunch up there and figured I’d have an easy afternoon. But after rounding your corner, I saw that there were still many lingering cornices and snowfields on the North- and east-facing slopes.

The snow was quite soft, so it was easy to kick little steps. Definitely not steep enough to be dangerous, it was just energy intensive.

I crossed over a pass and then had an absolutely ridiculous view down to these two Alpine lakes, the Overland Lakes.

The upper lake was mostly thawed and was tempting for a swim.

And given how far I was from a trailhead, the trail was surprisingly well maintained up here.

I went down to the lakeshore to get a better photo and dip my feet in the water. It was definitely refreshing.

After carefully getting down some more snow slopes I was at the lower Overland Lake.

It was a very peaceful little lake. I didn’t hear any animal sounds, and even the scattered campsites were deserted.

Yep, it definitely feels like hiking through the Sierras.

At the outlet end of the lake was this mysterious little abandoned cabin.

Also at the outlet end of the lake, much to my surprise, was another backpacker. I haven’t seen another hiker on this trail since California, which was about 500 miles ago. I met “Llama”, who was up for a weekend backpacking trip. Even more coincidentally, he’s one of the very few people who’ve actually thru-hiked the Hot Springs Trail before. Amazing. I had a fun afternoon hiking and chatting with him!

I mostly forgot to take photos that I was excited to be chatting with another human, but it did capture a few. Like this mysterious object next to the trail.

We did have to surmount a few more small cornices, though most of them we were able to easily go around.

I believe this was near the summit of Wines Peak, over 10,000 ft.

Neither of us wanted to camp up on a high ridgeline, so I hiked a little later than I normally would. We watched the sunset as we descended into a little valley to camp.

We made it down to North Furlong Creek just after sunset and set up camp near each other. I haven’t camped with anybody yet on this entire trail! We took pre-dinner selfie before retiring to our respective tents.

Fun day!

Sunday June 22, 8.0mi/12.9km

Harrison Pass (1030.0/7250ft) to McCutcheon Creek (1038.0/8750ft) (NV)

I got pretty lucky for picking a random hotel, the Holiday motel was pretty decent for $79 and even had free laundry. In the morning I went down to the Maverick and got a couple breakfast burritos, then after doing laundry and shower I packed up and went to lunch at the only place nearby, Dairy Queen. After lunch I started hitching back to trail which I knew would be a tough hitch. I started hitching at noon and took a couple hours to get the first ride which got me 5 miles out to Spring Creek. From that crossroads I waited another hour to get my second ride down a rural road, to the tiny hamlet of Jiggs, which is basically just a bar and community Center.

The driver Jay was really nice and agreed to drive me all the way down to Jiggs when I offered to buy us a round of drinks at the bar. He’s a local but hadn’t been there in years and thought it would be nostalgic. I let him order for both of us, and I was surprised and a little frightened that he ordered us shots of Fireball. But a deal is a deal. After washing the taste out of my mouth with a Coors beer, I stood out front and started hitching for my third and final ride to the trail at Harrison pass. Within 5 minutes a guy working at the silver mine picked me up, and Franklin said he could drive me halfway there before his road split off. But after being my usual friendly self for 5 minutes, he agreed that he could drive me all the way to the pass since he had some extra time. It was 5pm and I was back on trail!

The hike started off easy enough on an old 4wd road, with some cool rock formations to look at along the way.

After a couple miles the old road ended, and I was at the official trailhead for the Ruby Crest Trail.

This seemed like the most useless sign I’ve ever seen, since there was no junction nearby. Yup, it’s a trail!

The weather has been a little chilly the last few days and once I rounded the mountain I was in the wind again. But I could see for miles!

The old road got more and more overgrown, and it felt more like a hiking trail.

I love these little Aspen forests.

The Ruby Crest Trail is a National Recreation Trail, but some of the signs looked like they could use some maintenance or replacing.

Great views to the Northwest all the way back to Elko, where I had come from.

Once I rounded to the north side of the mountain, the vegetation changed and became almost all aspen forest.

Since I got a late start hiking, I only covered about 8 miles before ending my day at McCutcheon Creek.

It was a beautiful spot, and there was even plenty of running water nearby to fill my bottles. And falling asleep to the sound of a creek is always a wonderful end to the day.

Saturday June 21, 15.7mi/25.3km

Mitchell Creek saddle (1014.3/8570ft) to Harrison Pass (1030.0/7250ft) (NV)

This was my little patch of dirt camp spot, which was somewhat protected from wind by the trees. But it was still the windiest night of camping I think I’ve ever had.

Of course I didn’t sleep that well, so I was thankful to have some more easy old roads to hike this morning.

It was a quick thousand-ft climb up and over a pass.

And back down the other side, where there were still little patches of snow!

So far it was a pretty easy ridge walk, and quite scenic as well.

Just cruising along the ridgetops, there wasn’t even any wind!

Looking down into the valley, at the Ruby Lakes.

Eventually the old road ended and things got a little rockier. And slower. Looking ahead to Pearl Peak, my high point for the day:

On the Summit of Pearl Peak it started to become quite windy and the clouds were moving in. I could see ahead to the next two bumps on the ridge, the last of which was named Red Cone.

As I made my way down to Red Cone, the wind really started to increase. I hurried my way across the Ridgeline and pretty soon I was standing in front of Red Cone.

The rocks seemed to be red from some type of lichen that was growing on them. I hurried up and over, as it was becoming increasingly cold and windy.

The ridgeline was pretty rocky but I was making good time, motivated by an incoming storm.

Way below me to the West, I spotted a little alpine lake! So cool.

This was one of the last photos I took as my hands were starting to get pretty cold. It shows the storm moving in, and the amazing ridgeline I was descending.

Once I finished traversing the ridge I had to descend steeply, I opted for the scree express route.

The guidebook map shows a route going straight down the center of the ridge, but that was just a series of impossible looking 20-ft cliffs. So, no thanks! Besides, scree-surfing is fun! After losing a thousand feet of elevation in 5 minutes, I noticed the storm was getting pretty close.

For the next hour I was moving at full speed, descending and moving into the relative safety of a valley.

It was certainly much less windy, but now it was snowing on me. It was a beautiful valley, though the wildflowers didn’t seem to appreciate the snow either.

I just kept moving, which was a great way to stay warm since it was now 35ºF and lightly snowing. I made it all the way to the dirt road at Harrison pass, while trying to think of a plan of what to do. There were no trees nearby to block the wind, and since it’s a pass, all the wind gets funneled through the area. It was 4:30pm, so I didn’t have a lot of time to make it much further today. I decided to try and hitch to town. It was a long shot since it’s a very remote road, and in 1 hour I only saw 2 cars. They both stopped to chat with me, the first car was going the wrong direction. The second car picked me up and took me to Elko, where the two ladies were heading to see a rodeo tonight. It was a long drive, and an hour later I was in town in a warm dry restaurant. Spicy food is the best when you’re cold!

Downtown Elko is fairly compact, so I was able to walk a couple blocks and get a cheap motel room for the night. I’ll figure out what to do for tomorrow, and how to get back to the trail.

Friday June 20, 23.7mi/38.1km

Jacob’s Well Station (990.6/5960ft) to Mitchell Creek saddle (1014.3/8570ft) (NV)

I had a nice easy morning of hiking across the valley on the Pony Express route.

Apparently this route is also part of the California Trail, used by emigrants in the 1800s. This sign described the Hastings cut-off, which I believe was a shortcut to California.

As I approached Overland pass, I noticed someone had cut down an entire forest of juniper trees.

It was very sad to see but also very curious, since it looked like it was very haphazardly and hurriedly done. Maybe there was a wildfire and this was just a fire break? And this mysterious roadside device got my attention as well. It must have something to do with water but I have no idea what that could be.

At the end of the roadwalk, it was about lunch time so I stopped to enjoy my few remaining snacks. I don’t usually get too excited over peanut butter and crackers, but these ones are actually pretty good.

For most of the afternoon, I climbed slowly up into the Ruby mountains on a series of old roads.

It was easy and enjoyable hiking through some surprisingly scenic meadows.

As I gained elevation I noticed it was starting to become more windy.

And of course, once I was high enough, the trees disappeared and I was exposed to the full force of the wind. I could see ahead to Mt Sherman, one of the first Ruby mountains I would pass by.

Eventually the old roads faded out, and I followed a very nice sheep trail along the ridgeline.

I was very intrigued by the view to the East, I was seeing all this water. I believe these are the Ruby lakes.

A mile later I came to the creators of the nice trail I was using. Sheep!

They didn’t seem too concerned with my presence, and this one even continued to feed.

I continued on the very nice sheep trails as I meandered around the ridgelines, on my way to dry Burro Lake.

More views of the Ruby lakes, way down below.

Around the corner I came across more sheep and an entire hidden alpine valley.

This little patch of dirt is Burro Lake. Yup, it’s definitely dry.

I had a nice long break on a patch of grass next to the lake, sitting near these red and yellow wildflowers growing next to each other.

I had one more small uphill section for the day, as I climbed up a small gully.

It was pretty easy travel with all the sheep trails everywhere, and it wasn’t even too steep. At the top of the pass it was quite windy, and the trees seem to have grown in a way that reflects this.

My short little XC hiking section for the day was quite simple, walking through little tufts of grass and bushes that were ankle high.

I crossed Headwater Creek, and filled up my bottles since this would be the last water source for about 14 miles. The water was very cold!

I hadn’t seen Mormon crickets all day, but there were definitely plenty of piles of dead ones in the creek.

I continued on a flat spot identified on the map as a campsite. It was definitely flat, but it was also very windy.

I continued on another half mile to a thicker forest, hoping it would block some of the wind. And it did help with the wind, but it was so strong that I still couldn’t setup my tent. Definitely one of the windiest days I’ve ever hiked in. After struggling to cook dinner in the wind, I finished my meal and crawled into my bivy sack to sleep.

Thursday June 19, 18.0mi/29.0km

Peak 9023 (973.4/8950ft) to Jacob’s Well Station (990.6/5960ft) (NV) +0.8mi spring

The wind had stopped overnight, and I woke up to find hundreds of mosquitoes waiting for me to exit my mesh fortress.

It’s strange that there’s so many mosquitoes around, there isn’t even any water here. I packed up camp and headed out at 6 am, I still had 10 more difficult miles in the Diamond Range before I would drop down to the valley below.

It was beautiful walking the ridgeline all morning, and often I was able to find some horse trails to link together and make hiking a little easier.

It was amazing seeing little patches of snow. I filled one of my empty bottles with the snow, and stuck it on the sunny side of my pack so I would have water in a few hours.

Looking ahead, I could see the next pass I would go over had another snow patch, but also some creatures moving around nearby.

As I got closer, I was astonished to see that there was a pack of horses walking on the snow!

They didn’t hear me until I was pretty close and then they all scared off and ran up the hillside.

So far the hiking today had been difficult but I was able to keep a steady pace, with the help of all the horse trails. The last 3 miles were exceptionally slow, due to the craggy terrain. My energy bars always have a timely message for me.

Enjoying the last of the horse trails, while surveying the upcoming terrain.

I spent awhile studying the upcoming ridgeline, and after concluding I couldn’t stay on top, I decided to try to hike along the back side.

So I crossed over the top where it was a little rocky…

…and started scrambling the back side where it was definitely rocky.

It took me an hour to go a mile, and it was pretty scrambly with a couple of class 3 sections where I was carefully planning my hand and foot placements. Looking back on the really slow rocky section:

It took me 3 hours to go 3 miles, and the scrambling was kind of fun, but I was relieved to be done with that part. I started dropping down the ridgeline to the pass below.

I bombed down the descent, losing 2,000 ft in just a couple of miles. When I got down to a dirt road, I was surprised to see a little historical sign. Apparently this road used to be part of the Pony Express route. Cool!

By now it was 1pm, and I would have stopped for lunch but I wanted to get to the water source in another mile. It had been 33 slow miles since I had seen flowing water. Corta spring was a little tricky to find, and it was small but I was able to get all my water refilled.

When I first got to the spring area, I thought it was dry. I had to follow the drainage almost a quarter mile upstream to find tiny pools of water. They’re actually located exactly where the USGS maps mark them, so any future hikers should have that map set downloaded. After enjoying a blissful hour of drinking lots of water at the spring, I continued on the Pony Express Road.

Looking ahead, I could see the Ruby Mountains, where I would be for the next few days.

I made it halfway across the valley before stopping to camp. There were plenty of signs reminding me I was on the Pony Express route, which was fun to imagine how that system worked.

The Diamond Mountains were beautiful, but quite difficult and I’m glad I have a few easier days coming up.

Wednesday June 18, 20.7mi/33.3km

Diamond Spring (952.7/8330ft) to Peak 9023 (973.4/8950ft) (NV)

I got an early start at 6am since I wanted to get up to higher elevation before the heat of the day came. I started off with a very steep 4wd road for half a mile, which is a great way to wake up.

Looking back to the South at what I just came up:

And looking ahead, north, to Diamond Peak:

The old road disappeared and for the rest of the day I was hiking XC, usually on horse trails but sometimes just walking straight through the sagebrush. And for most of the day the trail was either going steeply uphill or down, almost never flat.

I loved walking the rocky ridgelines, this one was heading to the summit of Diamond Peak.

After a couple hours I made it to the summit of Diamond Peak!

I signed the trail register and spent awhile looking through it, the entries went all the way back to 2004 which was pretty cool. The view ahead, departing the summit:

The ridgeline departing the summit was the most enjoyable all day, it was pretty flat and relatively rock-free making for easy hiking.

Sometimes the ridgeline would become quite rocky and I would be slowed to a crawl pace.

As the morning progressed it started to get quite warm, and I was glad I was up here at 9,000 ft elevation.

Lunch time was my usual affair of cheese and summer sausage on a tortilla.

After lunch I dropped down a bit in elevation, and the ridgeline started to become a little bit rockier.

I’m not sure, but I think this is a horse skeleton since I had seen a herd of horses earlier today.

When there were horse trails, they were pretty nice, and I was very thankful to have them.

At one point, the guidebook instructs hikers to “save energy” and avoid a 700ft climb, and instead travel around one of the ridgelines, side-hilling for 6 miles. Umm, no thanks. I tried that for a mile and it’s exhausting when there is no trail. To anyone reading who is planning on hiking this, just hike up onto the top of the ridgeline, like I eventually did anyway. And when I was on top of the ridgeline, I found lots of nice horse trails, and also a massive square cairn that somebody had built. It was very strange.

I noticed as I hiked further north in the diamond mountains, the bugs increased. I was surprised at how many mosquitoes would swarm me every time I crossed over to the east side of the ridgeline, where there was no wind. I was even more surprised to see these disgusting bugs make a return, I hadn’t seen them since the Toiyabe mountains.

It was an exhausting day of hiking, and after moving for almost 14 hours, I had only covered 21 miles. It was time to look for a campsite and I was too depleted to continue, so I found an awkward little spot between some boulders, which helped block the wind. I made my dinner while watching the sunset, counting down the minutes until I could fall asleep.

This was probably in top 5 hardest days of hiking, and after finishing my dinner I could barely keep my eyes open and passed out.

Tuesday June 17, 9.8mi/15.8km

Eureka (942.9/6460ft) to Diamond Spring (952.7/8330ft) (NV)

I had a relaxing morning at the motel, first going down to the lobby to enjoy their free breakfast, which had pancakes and fruit and yogurt and even real juice. Then I went back to my room and had a final shower, and then making second breakfast in the little kitchenette room. Totino’s pizza rolls with applesauce and chocolate milk, those are breakfast foods right? I got my new shoes from the hotel manager, corporate policy didn’t allow me to ship them to the motel, but she nicely offered to ship it to her personal address and brought them into work.

There’s quite a difference in the rubber tread!

The previous pair I got in Ojai, which was over 600 trail miles ago. I checked out of the hotel at 11am, walked back down the Main Street to the Owl Cafe for lunch. Most of what they had was hamburgers, but I managed to find a chicken sandwich on the menu. Afterwards I went to the library to update my journal, and do some research on the upcoming Idaho Centennial Trail (in Idaho, the Hot Springs Trail basically follows the ICT). Once I get to the Idaho border, I might flip up to the northern border and then hike southbound through the state, possibly avoiding some hot weather and/or wildfires. I said goodbye to the librarian, who seemed very nice but not very educated, she hadn’t even heard of the upcoming Juneteenth holiday, which I think we’ve been celebrating for 6 years now. On my final walk through town I passed this fascinating vending machine, which sold USB chargers, snacks, and sodas…but warm sodas.

It was an easy walk out of town on a series of dirt roads, and even a really faint two-track road that I had to squint to see. But it was there!

That I was back on a decent two-track road for the rest of the afternoon, gradually climbing up to 8,500 ft elevation.

Once I got above 7,500 ft the trees disappeared as usual.

I arrived to Diamond Spring and confirmed it had water flowing, and then backtracked a minute to a flat-ish spot to camp. I had a pretty good view from my campsite.

I will fill up my 6 liter capacity at the spring in the morning, and then I have a 33 mile dry stretch of trail. And based on reading the journals of previous hikers like Buck30 and Krista/Eric, I knew this upcoming 33 mile stretch over the Diamond mountains would be tough and slow. So I’ll be fine, just a little thirsty by the end.

Monday June 16, 8.4mi/13.5km

Spring Valley Pass (934.5/7720ft) to Eureka (942.9/ft) (NV)

I slept really well in that camp spot despite having weird dreams about Jacinda Ardern (former Prime Minister) rescuing puppies from the sea. Excited for town, I had an early 6am start and was moving quickly towards food.

It was a pretty easy 8 miles of mostly downhill hiking, though I did hit a little traffic.

Being stuck in a flock of sheep definitely gave me New Zealand vibes. Eventually the shepherd came by and I talked to him and he is Basque! Apparently they have a history of settlement in this region from the 1800s. I visited Basque country a couple summers ago on the HRP (Pyrenees) route. After the congestion cleared I continued towards town, passing an old abandoned mine along the way.

I got into Eureka at 9am, and noticed it’s quite a bit bigger than Austin, and had more restored historic buildings.

The Opera House!

The saloon and general store.

And of course, just like Austin, they advertised their location on “the loneliest road in America”.

Since I was right next to the post office, I went in to get my resupply box of food (thanks Mom!). This was my favorite post office, because Daisy was helping to work the counter.

Next I went to eat breakfast, at the only place open in town, the Eureka Depot coffeehouse.

That cinnamon roll was made from butter with Vermont maple syrup in it. Amazing. It was still early so I hung out for an hour, charging my phone and catching up on the world. Sounds like the “No King’s Day” demonstrations were mostly a success. On my way out I met a Kiwi wearing an “All Blacks” t-shirt, he’s from Wellington. That was my third New Zealand connection today, the universe is weird. After breakfast I went across the street and explored more of the historic and touristy parts of town. Like this five-hole outhouse!

It didn’t explain how it was historically used, but I imagine five people would sit there and hold hands?! By now it was afternoon and I went over to the hotel to try and check in early. The hotel was short-staffed so the rooms weren’t ready yet but she said I could hang out in the breakfast room on one of the sofas. They had insanely cheap soda pop so I grabbed a couple, it’s so easy to get dehydrated out there.

The Best Western sure stay really had everything, a nice laundry room right on site, a fitness room, and even a full kitchen so I could make some meals and not have to spend lots of money eating out at restaurants.

So I made dinner in that little kitchen, though once I heard the Urban Cowboy restaurant had really excellent garlic naan, I had to go down and grab some. While I was waiting, a cold Coors beckoned.

I love that this is the default beer in this part of the world. Afterwards I went back to the hotel and flipped through the channels and watched half a season of Orange is the New Black, haha.

Sunday June 15, 26.4mi/42.5km

Faulkner Creek (908.1/7400ft) to Spring Valley Pass (934.5/7720ft) (NV)

I slept great next to the sound of the creek, and it was a nice cool morning. I had another mile of hiking in the forest before it disappeared.

I started noticing these little cacti, even though I’m still up high in the forest. The climate of this part of Nevada is intriguing.

Soon enough I was back down at a lower elevation in the sagebrush, beginning my crossing of Antelope Valley.

Just as the forest was ending, I had stopped at Faulkner Creek to fill up my water for the next 33 mi to town. Which was a good strategy, because although the guidebook lists the Hot Spring Ranch as having water, it was closed.

There didn’t seem to be anyone around, and I had 5 liters, plenty of water to hike the 30 miles to town. But it was odd. They actually had Wi-Fi, and forgot to put a password on it, so I was able to check their website and saw that it was no longer available for overnight stays or day use. It was only available for large groups to rent out the whole facility. Darn. I continued down the dirt road, crossing Antelope Valley. I saw no antelope, though I saw plenty of wild horses.

There was another private ranch, where the trail made a big detour around, adding a couple miles to the crossing of the valley.

By now it was getting a little hot, so I was looking forward to completing the valley crossing and getting back into the shade of the juniper trees. I stopped for lunch underneath the shade of a windmill, and I could hear it actually pumping water.

After eating most of the remaining food in my bag, I crossed the lowest part of the valley which was a playa.

There was even a little bit of easy XC hiking, there was such little vegetation on this playa that it was basically walking in a straight line, aiming for “Wood Cone peak” in the middle of the photo.

The end of the valley was in sight as I could see juniper trees nearby. And for some reason, antique junk cars were also nearby.

I took a nice long break in the shade of a juniper tree, enjoying the view back across the valley. It was fun to look at Summit Mountain, which I had hiked across yesterday afternoon.

Most of the dirt roads I hiked on today seemed very remote, I’m sure they’ve seen more hooves than tires. I had a small climb out of Antelope Valley up through a juniper forest and these cool little rock formations.

The rocks kinda reminded me of the ones in Joshua Tree, and they looked quite climbable! I spent the rest of the day hiking in a sparse juniper forest through Spring Valley, which was slowly leading me north towards town. Unsurprisingly, one of the spots the guidebook marked as a campsite was non-existent, so I continued a mile to the next spot which was a real campsite.

I hadn’t seen a single person all day today (or yesterday), so going into town tomorrow will probably feel a little hectic!

Saturday June 14, 26.7mi/43.0km

Toquima Ridge (881.4/6850ft) to Faulkner Creek (908.1/7400ft) (NV)

It was a great spot in the wash amongst the trees, and I noticed after hiking only a few minutes this morning the trees disappeared as I went downhill.

I finished off the last bit of XC hiking through some sparse sagebrush.

I arrived at Monitor well #3, which the guidebook says is a water source.

However, the windmill was missing most of its parts, and it appeared the well pump had been converted to run on electric. But there was no source of electricity nearby.

It appeared to be wired to run on a generator, which is a very odd setup indeed for a livestock water source. I climbed up on the metal tank and looked inside, only to find it empty of water but did contain two resident birds.

So I continued on across the Monitor valley, the next water source was 8 miles away on easy dirt roads. Thankfully it was a slightly cloudy morning which kept the temperatures nice and cool.

Apparently I had passed by the geographical center of Nevada. I looked for a sign but there was none. Now I kinda want to find the geographical center of all the states (except Hawaii, because it’s probably in the ocean). When I got to Wallace Canyon, I started hearing a lot of hoofbeats, and pretty soon I saw the culprits.

A few minutes later I started seeing riparian vegetation, some willows and cottonwood trees, and found the little side trail through the water source.

The guidebook calls it a springbox, but really it’s just a white PVC pipe. It was only 11am, but I had an early lunch and drank a ton of water since I knew the next water was up and over the Monitor mountain range. So I wouldn’t be seeing water again until tomorrow. The quiet dirt road climbed nice and gradually.

And as I got a little higher, the Aspen trees started to appear again.

After an hour of that nice road I turned onto a steeper 4wd track, which took me up to the top of the mountain range.

It was pretty amazing hiking through a sea of purple flowers for like a quarter mile.

Every time a breeze came, the whole field would shift and sway in vibrant colors. The 4wd track was decidedly inefficient, whoever built it was probably drunk as it went steeply uphill but then also sometimes back down half the gain. Ugh.

Finally after climbing 2,000 feet to gain only 1,200 feet overall, I cruised along the top of the ridgeline for a couple hours. There were lots of horses up here as well, though not all of them were alive.

Another strange sight was the last little bit of lingering snowpack.

After the nice traverse of the ridgeline on old 4wd drive roads, I had a couple miles of XC hiking. About half of the time I was able to follow horse trails to traverse the mountain.

I was pretty amazed to find three different colors of the paintbrush flowers!

Technically I walked on snow today, for all of 4 feet!

After hiking around Summit Mountain (a ridiculous name), I came to the little pass between it and Antelope Peak, so I knew I was almost done with the XC hiking.

Frustratingly, I couldn’t camp at this pass since it was far too windy and there were no trees, even though there had been trees all day at this elevation. So I descended into Faulkner Creek valley.

The guidebook suggested following patchy game trails, which was certainly a successful strategy, there was a very well-used braided web of game trails to link together and follow. I tried to stay away from the creek and it’s thicker vegetation, and pretty soon I was down at an old grassy two-track road. The guidebook full of lies also said there’s a campsite here but there was none to be found, just slope-y overgrown ground. So I followed the grassy two-track road another mile before I found a flat little spot under some pines right next to the road. It appears no one has driven this road in years so I’m not worried about a vehicle coming by. It was such a beautiful day of hiking but I definitely earned it with calories burned, and a few extra unplanned miles at the end of the day. Gonna sleep good tonight!