SUMMARY:  Today we knew we’d face the hard part of the Mack’s Inn alternate route: 5 miles of no trail, following a creek westward until it reached Lillian Lake and the official CDT. We could not locate the beginning of the 5 miles, so we had to improvise.

The map said to closely follow the creek, but we soon discovered that was a bad idea—thick strands of plants, fallen trees, multiple creek crossings—yuck! So we went up the hill above the creek and followed along that way. Just before Lillian Lake, we came to a large area of swamp and bushes, but marched through (yelling, in case of bears) and made it back to the CDT.

Now we are high up on the Divide, with incredible views and a very strong wind. We are camped behind a grove of trees with the wind roaring.

DETAILS:  There was a beautiful sunrise this morning, but the clouds looked ??? so I lashed my raingear to the top of my pack where I could grab it easily if needed.  We continued our long walk up Sawtelle Mountain Road, admiring the awesome views, but then the “fun” began.  We could not tell from the map what we should be looking for at the place where the Ley route turned off the road.  Should we be looking for another little road?  Or a trail?  Or what?  We knew we needed to get to the Hell Roaring Creek canyon (what a name!)   We hunted and hunted for some indication, going up the road a bit, then back, very puzzled.  Finally we found it!  And it was a trail.  What had happened was the SIGN which had been set up to show the start of the trail had been knocked down and pretty much destroyed.  All that was left were a couple of fallen posts.

So we swung off along what turned out to be a VERY pretty trail, with lovely groves of trees, wildflowers and views.  Wow!  We were hiking along, enjoying it tremendously and thinking happily that eventually we would get to the end of it, where it would turn into the 5-mile bushwhack.  That’s what it looked like on our map, anyway.  But what we didn’t realize was that our “bushwhack route” turned OFF from the nice trail we were on, and we walked right by the turnoff.  I didn’t realize anything was wrong until the trail started dropping down quickly into a very pretty canyon….and a look at the map made me say, “Whoa!  We are going the wrong way, and this is the wrong side of the mountain!”

So we climbed back up onto the mountain shoulder and looked long and hard at the topography, trying to figure out what to do.  Finally we decided, “OK, let’s assume THAT canyon over THERE is the Hell Roaring canyon”, and we simply headed for it.  We knew we needed to be travelling west along Hell Roaring Creek, to reach Lillian Lake and the CDT.  At first we tried to stay high above the creek, but the mountainside was so steep and rough that it made for hard going.  And, the map showed the route being right down AT the creek.  So we scrambled down and started walking the creek.  It turned out to be a sort of mini-Gila , but WORSE.  There were thick stands of plants and bushes, fallen trees and multiple creek crossings.  It was slow and frustrating.  Finally we said, “Phooey on this!” and climbed back up the hill so we could parallel the creek, but higher up.  And hooray, up there, we even found some bits of “use trail”, so obviously other people had gone this way, too.

When we stopped for lunch, there was a very cold wind blowing–brrrrr!  So we didn’t take long to eat before pushing on.  Finally we got to the end of the creek, and it turned out to be a swamp zone with an awful lot of bushes.  Fixit hates swamps.  I hate swamps.  We stood there and looked at it.  There was a knoll up ahead, where we could go and maybe spot Lillian Lake, but to get there involved going through swamp.  Yuck.  Fixit didn’t want to do it, but I was very anxious to be able to get up and SEE what lay ahead of us, so I slogged through (yelling “Hey bear!  Hikers!”).

Hooray, I was able to spot Lillian Lake!   Fixit growled a bit and slogged through the swamp, too, and we hiked past the lake to the spring on the far end, where we were able to get some really good water AND best of all, there was the CDT!  Hooray!

It sure was good to be back on a real trail, and have the Garmin available.  And we did need it–there were several tricky places where we weren’t sure which way to go.   We met 3 more SOBO’s in the afternoon.  The CDT trail went up and down a lot, but the trail tread was fine, and there was a part going along a narrow ridge, where the views were awesome in both directions, but the wind was so fierce that it was hard to hike.   We are up very high, and there is a lot of open grassland with groupings of trees.  The wildflowers are lovely–all the “late summer” kind like asters, etc.

When it was time to camp, it was really hard to find a spot.  Everything was mountainside and the wind was cold & howling.  But finally we spotted a grove of trees on the hillside below the trail that looked like maybe there would be a way to tuck ourselves in on the “lee” side.  So that’s what we did–we squeezed between some bushes next to the trees.  I actually sort of like being able to camp in wind-protected spots where I can still HEAR the wind, and that’s exactly what this spot turned out to be.  I am so glad to be back on the CDT!