As we were packing up a grey fox trotted by with something in it’s mouth. 15 feet away. For some reason I thought foxes were shy. Didn’t have time to get a picture sadly…
We had a great climbing morning with lots of views to the west of the Lemhi Range. We met our first northbound CDT hiker too! Evan, seemed like he was moving fast but stopped to give us condition reports for the next couple hundred miles. Sounds like Yellowstone will be fine, but we have to get permits and follow them (he got fined for not following his). He also raved a bit about the Winds, which are after Yellowstone. I was already excited about them, now I’m eagerly anticipating getting there. He did say that crampons and ice axe are needed, so that’s one more logistical piece to sort out.
After lunch we ran into some real cowboys! We’ve seen lots of horse riders, but usually it’s a guide with se tourists. I asked these guys what they were up to and they said “looking at the grass”….. Took me a beat to remember it would be for the cows. Duh. They also had a pack of dogs who were very well behaved, basically ignored me. They had lassoes and spurs 🙂
Rain threatened all afternoon, so dinner was somewhat quick, with most stuff staying packed. In the end there was no rain, so we hiked down to Bannock Pass. This is where we would normally have stopped to resupply, but we have enough to get to the next town.
We did find a case of beer laid out by a CDT marker just off the road… Our first official trail “magic”. Things like this were common on the PCT – previous hikers lugging out a cooler of beer or pop to somewhere random on the trail. Tasty!
Daily Summary
Date: Aug 3, 2011
Day 40
Daily Distance: 26 miles
Trip Distance: 702.5 miles