I walked 59580 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 26 miles today.
7/21/17 Josh checking in today! (Dad's looking at tomorrow's routes at the moment, so I'll jump into the spotlight). Sticking true to our recently self-imposed morning routine, we got rolling bright and early at 5:30am. Started hiking from Jeremy and Nikki's backyard down the main street, leeching all the free WiFi that we could from outside the stores as we strolled by. Made our way past some tiny convenience store along Lake Koocanusa, so I bought a snickers bar and twinkie (mostly so that I wouldn't feel crummy about enjoying the luxury of their clean bathroom and water refill in the sink. I love getting water without having to filter it!!). We knew that water sources were going to be tricky today, so we chugged a bunch before refilling and pressing onwards. While still fresh from all the rest yesterday, we quickly cranked out 17 miles of road walking and found ourselves at the bottom of Mt. Webb just minutes before 1pm. We nearly witnessed a family of deer get obliterated by the highway traffic, but luckily it didn't go down that way cuz we very well might've been in the splashzone! Feeling good about our pace in the pleasant low-temp hours of the morning, we began ascending Mt. Webb, which we had heard about plenty from the folks last night. The further we climbed, the more the incline seemed to steepen, and the hotter it felt like the sun was shining overhead. Conserving water was at the forefront of both our minds, and to accomplish this we needed to maintain a steady, yet efficient pace to minimize our exposure to the sun beaming down on our side of the mountain. We zig-zagged up to the top by 3:30pm, stopping once to nibble on some huckleberries; we were cutting it close with a few drips of water to spare, and at least 2 more miles until the next water source that we could see on the map. We hiked the trail along the ridge line as it flattened out, expecting to see a pond to refill with....