Miles Hiked 330.4
Elevation 10,305 feet
Miles Hiked Today 16.7
The day started with a beautiful rainbow. Cool! I was hiking by 7 AM. Still going through meadows and forest service roads, but I was making good time.
Late morning I was plodding along. My eyes are on the trail and whatever rocks might trip me up. Damn! I missed a turn. It was a mile down this forest service road before I knew it. Now I had to backtrack a mile and lose valuable time. Or… I checked my navigation app and realized, if I bushwhacked due west, I could rejoin the trail and not lose too much time. So, that’s what I did.
The bushwacking took me through dense shrub and forest. Using my compass, I navigated right to the trail an hour later, and I was on the go again.
Later in the day I came to a fast moving creek. I went out on a bridge to cross it and found part of the bridge was gone. I debated whether to jump across, but that had a bad ending written all over it. I carefully backed off the bridge (two logs placed but only half way across). Looking upstream I found what looked like a good place to cross. I walked to the spot and crossed the creek. The water was only up to my mid-calf, which made it an easy crossing.
The rest of the day was routine and I found a good campsite about 5:15.
