The rolling hills - a rollercoaster

Day 108

Date: 17.08.2022

CDT Mile: Mile 2'161.6

Miles hiked: 20.2 miles / 32.3 km

Elevations: 6'266 feet ascent (1'911 m Aufstieg) / 4'455 feet descent (Abstieg 1'358.8 m)

Camping at: 9'104 feet / 2'776.7 m

Today is gonna be a tough day. We already know. We have already been told by several southbounder's that the upcoming stretch till Darby will be tough. Checking our app we will climb more than 6'000 feet today and water will be more scarce too. Feels a little like being back in Colorado, except that we ar not in the same high altitude, have less water and hotter temperatures during the day. I am not looking forward to all this steep climbing, specially with my heavy backpack of about 17 kg, but everyone also said the views are beautiful.

Last night was very warm, too warm actually for me to fall asleep. At 2am finally I had the brilliant idea to take off my second jumper and also get out of my inner sleepingback. Took me a while, but afterwards I could sleep. Around 4.30am or 5am the temperatures dropped immensely and I had to get back into my inner sleepingbag. The mornings are cold now and when my alarm went off it was still dark outside. But only a few minutes later the sunrise lightened up the sky. We hiked out shortly before 7am (I think I wrote 6am a couple of times but we always hike out around 7am), to enjoy the colder temperatures for the uphills as long as we can. And it starts right off with climbing. The sun rises behind us, it is already beautiful out here. Some of the climbs are very steep, a trail isn't always given as we climb up the mountains and follow the ridge line. But the views are really beautiful. I feel like being back in the desert. I would have never thought that Montana/Idaho looks like this, that deserty. I expected real mountains and forest and lakes! We break after 4.5 miles to eat breakfast (second breakfast as they call it, but as I am not a good eater first thing in the early mornings, this is normally the first thing I eat.). Today, my breakfast consists of 2 old fashioned donuts and a beef jerky for protein. That's what I got at the gas station. These 4.5 miles took us quite a while, with all the climbing, but we climbed already 2'000 feet. In 3.5 miles there is a water source, off trail though. It's a steep downhill hike of about 0.2 miles to a pipe, with cold delicious water. The uphill hike feels much harder though, even without a pack on. But we all needed more water. Hiking up in the ridge line, being exposed to the sun all the times, and hiking up and down and up and down, I was drinking much more water than normally. The trail is like a rollercoaster. I do now understand why these mountains are also called rolling hills. The up's and down's are mostly steep, but short. We hike on and the trail climbs very brutally steep. And when we thought we could take a lower route around the mountain rather than climbing up the ridge line, we were fooled. It seems we followed some animal paths and at the back of the mountain, in turned out that we have to get back up the ridge line, bush whacking it all up. That sucked and was very hard too. We stopped for lunch, having hiked only 10.2 miles by 1pm! The further we hike, the earlier we get into town on Sunday. But it also looks like today is the day with the most climbing. So maybe we are able to hike more miles the upcoming days. The next water is in 8 miles and now we finally have a descent ahead of us of more than just some 0.X miles. But it is a steep one. Having a heavy pack on with food for 4-5 days and carrying extra water is not fun for climbing steep section's, neither for descending. Our knees hurt. And so do our feet. Hiking along the ridge line, the trail is mostly not a flath nice path, but being very uneven and leaning towards one side.

Mastering the last climb of today, 1'700 feet in 2.8 miles, we find a beautiful spot to camp. It is not easy finding campsites along a ridge line. This is actually the best camp spot we found all day. We are not hiking anymore today, but enjoy this nice camp spot with an absolutely bin blowing sunset. Mouse and I are cowboy camping. May for the last time on trail. Just before falling asleep, an owl is circling very close around us - amazing!

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