I woke up feeling good and ready to go. Hopefully I could back to the solid days I have grown accustomed to. To wake me up, the route traveled straight up the Noisy Creek Trail and skirted multiple mountaintops 6,000’ in the air. the trail stayed high, but was quality and well maintained. There were burned sections, but little deadfall or black limbs across the route. It slowly dropped and climbed gradually a couple times and before I knew it, I had closed out Washington and was in my first of two appearances in Idaho. After a Northern section through Montana, my route will enter Idaho again, as it follows the border of the two states. It was a day of less roads than trail. On one of the roads, I heard a load scraping coming from a tree. I looked up and there was a bear about 20 feet off the ground hugging and scraping the bark off the tree. My pictures all came out blurry, and sometimes I think bears are just inherently blurry. From the border, the trail was easy, albeit with some nasty mosquitos. I hiked by upper priest lake and finally found a spot with some wind to thin the biting insects to make dinner. Then I camped along the lake on a sandy beach. Two lake campsites in two days! I am on a roll!
Miles 40
Total route miles 3035
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