Here we go again, I sleep well, don’t sleep well, sleep, no sleep. Last night was one of the no sleep days…but I manage to hike and keep it together…

We all woke early with a 30 on our minds…hiking by 6:30? Definitely will be enough time. The day meandered up and down the border of Idaho and Montana, in fact I think we slept in Montana last night, and would have celebrated, but didn’t realize until looking at the maps this morning. Montana! The last state!!

We had heard some grumbing from other hikers that the Idaho/Montana border was frustrating with PUDs (Pointless Ups and Downs), but even though we climbed and descended, much of the walk was along open ridges with expansive views…At one point I could see into 3 states, Wyoming with the Tetons looming in a haze on the horizon, Idaho on one side and Montana on the other. I enjoyed the hiking as it truely felt like we were traversing the Divide.

Since we got an early start and the day started cloudy and cooler, the first 15 miles seemed to fly and once we reached a creek for lunch, were happy at the progress.

The sun came out after, and somehow the humidity shot up a notch, I didn’t sweat so much as ooze during the afternoon. The ups got a bit steeper, and the downs fewer and far between. Blah. We took a few breaks in the shade and after the final push to make 30 miles, spied a stellar campsite at 27 miles near the last water of the day….to stop or not to stop. We were all tired, and the decision was either to go on and having a shorter day into the town of Lima tomorrow, or stay where the camping was nice and our feet were already wanting to stop.

Stopping it is! I made a bomb batch of mac & cheese followed by a devine batch of dark chocolate cheesecake. Lima tomorrow, I hope my debit card made it there.