{"id":604,"date":"2016-08-20T23:49:22","date_gmt":"2016-08-20T23:49:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/?p=604"},"modified":"2017-06-17T18:42:50","modified_gmt":"2017-06-17T18:42:50","slug":"back-to-alpine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/2016\/08\/20\/back-to-alpine\/","title":{"rendered":"Saturday August 20 Back to Alpine"},"content":{"rendered":"

SUMMARY:\u00a0 <\/strong>We spent the morning doing easy hiking down in the Pioneer Creek valley\u2014there must have been one pioneer who quit, though\u2014we passed a half-finished log cabin. Around 9:00am, we missed a key junction where we should have turned right, and went 1 1\/4 miles before we realized our mistake. Grr!<\/p>\n

But we got back on track and spent the rest of the day going uphill\u2014gradually at first, then steeper as we got higher, back into a spectacular alpine zone. It has everything a backpacker could want\u2014lots of lakes, wildflowers, meadows, dramatic rocky peaks. The only people here are CDT hikers. We did see another NOBO today, but he’s young and fast, and passed us easily. We are very tired from the steep rocky climbs, but it is so beautiful here!<\/p>\n

DETAILS:\u00a0 <\/strong>Yesterday we were a bit worried about “what if that fog comes back tonight?” so we made sure to camp in a grove of fir trees (they stay dry underneath a lot better than pine trees do!).\u00a0 But we woke up this morning to clear skies and a bright, almost-full moon.\u00a0 Because of the moon we were able to pack up and get on the trail sooner, which was good.<\/p>\n

Then we had easy walking through meadow and forest to a river crossing, where there was a BRIDGE!\u00a0 Yay!\u00a0 I was thinking we’d have to ford it.\u00a0 Near the bridge we saw a NOBO camped–the first we’ve seen in ages.\u00a0 He said there were 2 more guys behind him.\u00a0 I guess we’ve reached another “hiker bubble”?<\/p>\n

After the river we went down through a very pretty valley, where we passed a half-finished cabin.\u00a0 It looked like somebody had got the walls halfway done, then gave up.\u00a0 A short while later, we stupidly missed a key turn and kept happily hiking along as fast as we could on the very nice trail which even had “CDT footprints.”\u00a0 We can recognize the distinct footprints of other hikers, and we knew that those footprints were genuine CDT.\u00a0 But when we stopped for a snack, I looked at the Garmin and said, “Oh no!\u00a0 We missed the turn!”\u00a0\u00a0 Back we went, and when we got to the junction, I added a BUNCH of stuff to the “Hikers!\u00a0 Turn here!!!!” indicators, which were there, but we’d sailed right past them, trying to walk fast.<\/p>\n

The trail then headed up, but not too steeply.\u00a0 One of the NOBO’s caught up with us (we call him “Kilt Guy” because he hikes in a kilt) just as we were finishing lunch (which was a freezedried dinner we got for Christmas from our daughter.\u00a0 Chili mac!\u00a0 Yum!).\u00a0 From there, it was all uphill on mostly rough and rocky trail.\u00a0 We met some dayhikers who were out with their very yappy dog (which they were carrying, thank goodness!).<\/p>\n

Eventually we reached Rock Island Lakes–very pretty, with a backdrop of impressive, rocky cliffs.\u00a0 Now we were really climbing, back into alpine country above timberline.\u00a0 The uphill grew steeper and steeper and the scenery was spectacular, but I had a hard time of it–for some reason I started to have trouble breathing on steep uphills.\u00a0 I got to the point where I was gasping for breath and had to stop for awhile.\u00a0 I have never had this problem before–it is weird.<\/p>\n

We made it to the top of the climb and began the downhill on steep, rocky trail–slow going.\u00a0 But there were blazes on the rocks–orange triangles with a dot over them.\u00a0 There were also some very nice rock causeways going through the swampy areas.\u00a0 And…there was still some snow, even in August.\u00a0 The wildflowers are in full bloom, there are dramatic mountain peaks, and lakes tucked into every spot where you could possibly tuck a lake.\u00a0 I was very surprised we didn’t see any “regular backpackers.”\u00a0 This seems like prime backpacker country.<\/p>\n

By 7:00 pm, we were still up above timberline and had to camp in a meadow.\u00a0 Oh boy. That means maybe frozen shoes tomorrow morning??\u00a0 I am very tired, and also frustrated because I had hoped to do more miles, but between all the rock and having trouble breathing, I didn’t do very well.\u00a0 Wow, this is beautiful country, though!\u00a0 It would be worth coming back to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SUMMARY:\u00a0 We spent the morning doing easy hiking down in the Pioneer Creek valley\u2014there must have been one pioneer who quit, though\u2014we passed a half-finished log cabin. Around 9:00am, we missed a key junction where we should have turned right, and went 1 1\/4 miles before we realized our mistake. Grr! But we got back […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-idaho","category-montana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1023,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604\/revisions\/1023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}