There’s really not much to say about this day.
I left camp around 9:30am and hiked until around 9:30pm.
I was just under Searle Pass when I started. Coming over it gave some views and put me in the land of the pikas. I heard there was at least one pine marten living up here, but I never saw it. Just lots of pikas running around when I took my first snack break.
The high point for the day was just a few miles in, then I descended for most of the day. Down to Kokomo Pass and down off the ridge following a creek down to a dirt road along the bottom of a canyon. Just before the bottom of the hill, I took lunch beside a creek. It was a sunny day most of the day, but not an overly warm one. Sitting in the shade was too cold when the wind blew. So I had to make a seat in the sun right on the bank.
A mountain biker passed me walking his bike uphill and quipping it was easier downhill.
The trail ran parallel to the dirt road in the valley bottom, passing a waterfall on a nice bridge, then coming back to the road at a trailhead where a family seemed to be packing up their truck. It left the dirt road on a closed forest service road before it reached the highway so that it could climb partway up the ridge and run parallel to the highway, looking down on it, for a mile or so before crossing it. It was a fairly busy, noisy road, and I had to wait a minute for an opening before crossing.
After dropping into another valley and working around the edge of it, the trail climbed up to a road that seemed so thoroughly well-built it may once have been a railroad grade. It was 6pm, so I took supper on a nice rock beside it.
Setting off into the dark along the road, I soon came to a part that proved it undrivable. A fence blocked the trail just before a rotten, collapsing bridge. The trail left the berm for a moment, rejoining on the other side of the bridge.
The road quickly turned into a more narrow footpath-like trail after that. A couple of miles later, I came to the Tennessee Pass trailhead with its enormous privy. There was no trash can, so I kept walking through the night.
A short while later, I came to the junction to one of the mountain huts. There was a wooden bench swing here. I was tempted to go up and see the cabin, but I knew it would be closed until Thanksgiving, and I had miles to do.
It was a few more miles in the dark forest, up and down until I reached the enormous flat clearings at the first crossing of the creek named in the title of this post. I set up camp right next to the trail while trying out my new water filter for the first time. It was blazingly fast, done by the time I had looked back at it.
Sleep by a bit after 11.
Trail miles: 19.7
Distance to Twin Lakes: 36 miles
