No wonder I have already almost fallen asleep. In the first half of the day I climbed over 5,000 feet to meet back up with the ODT on top of the Trout Creek Mountains. Tired.

I fell asleep early yesterday and as a result woke about 3am this morning feeling rested. Hmm, a little early, so I laid back down until 4am when I could see a hint of dawn coming. I was walking before the sun popped up, and fortunately, I would need those extra hours of sunshine to get myself up in the mountains.

Good morning

The hiking continued for a few miles on the well maintained dirt road before it was time for me to leave the security of the road and start climbing cross country. There were no trees, and the cross country was pretty easy since there was’t much sagebrush. I had to navigate over and around rock outcroppings, each time thinking I’ve made good progress, only to find I had more to climb and thousands of feet left to climb. I took semi-frequent breaks and continued climbing. Finally almost to the top of it all I took a long lunch break under a stand of trees that had escaped being burned up by a big fire that whipped through here a few years ago. Then for the final push up to the top…and whew, there is a road that runs the length of these mountains, a road on a flat top, almost like a mesa. It reminded me of the CDT last year, it could have easily been in Idaho or Montana.

Once I connected my alternate back up to the trail I took a nice long break. The next few miles would float up on top of the world.

Camp in tucked cowboy style away in some sagebrush. Tired.