After the perfect day in Glacier National Park this morning was a little tougher. There was a really difficult and whiny man at the campsite I stayed at. Rangers came in late last night to talk to him because he had yelled at a ranger. He broke most the rules of the park but still managed to complain about everything. I thought I was through with him when he left camp, but alas I caught up to him a couple miles later where he was armed with more complaints. I simply told him the world is not out to get him and moved on. The mosquitos are awful. I packed up as quickly as possible but couldn’t avoid their bites and got back on the trail, even forgoing the use of a real outhouse. The campsite seemed to be bad luck and I am pretty good at squatting anyways. Hundreds of mosquitos buzzing, I ran down the trail, swatting all the way. These mosquitos appear to be unfazed by repellent, complicating my usual solution. So I tried to outrun them. I met my first northbound CDT they hiker after a small snow crossing. I congratulated Captain Kirk and continued on my way. It was hot today, a ranger said they were record highs. So I took lots of short breaks until I could make it to a lake. On one of these breaks I called the man who taught me all about long distance hiking:Lil Buddha. It was cool to talk from Fifty Mountain in Glacier National Park. We caught up a bit before I continued in the heat, by Granite Chalet, and over Swiftcurrent Pass. It was hot but the descent finally began. I dropped down and in the record heat, jumped into two of the three lakes I passed. In the third lake was a large bull moose and a cow moose. Then into Many Glacier where I met two PCT hikers from last year and grabbed some ice cream. About 6pm, a ranger pulled out a large telescope on a stand and pointed it at the hillside. There was a grizzly up there with 3 cubs. So I saw my grizzly but it would take two buses and a plane for it to get close to enough to attack me.
Miles 27
Total miles 3332
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