I walked 60434 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 26 miles today.
7/23/17 Tonight, we ran into Annelise at Pete's Creek camp and got to chat for a couple hours.  She is hiking the trail alone, has great determination, and is gradually putting miles behind her. An injury slowed her up but she's back on trail.  She was fun to talk with and never let the conversation pause very long. Our day began with the usual steep strenuous uphill climb.  Starting at 6:30 makes a huge difference with the temperature being in the 40s instead of the 80s or 90s.  Up the hill, we found our first good patch of huckleberries so we sat down and picked awhile for a break.  I sat right on a small bush and now have purple stains on pants, underwear, and skin. It was worth it. We dropped into the Yaak valley for another long roadwalk.  Josh found out that Yaak is a Kootenai word for arrow.  We just walked across the valley. We stopped for water before our second long uphill at the spot we thought the trail started.  It turns out this was just a short trail to a beautiful waterfall.  After admiring the falls and figuring out it was a deadend, we slogged the very long hot dirt roadwalk up Garver mountain. On the way up, while we were filtering yet more water, a truck stopped.  The pastor from the Yaak church was giving Batman a ride up the hill.  We had heard of Batman in Eureka and thought we might run into him.  He is covering the trail collecting data for an app called HikerBot that hikers use to navigate the trail.  One key thing he is gathering is water sources along the way!!!  You should check out HikerBot.  Josh is planning to download it in a few days. Our day ended with yet another long downhill in the hot late afternoon sun, dropping down to Pete's creek.  In general, the eastern slopes seem more gradual and forested while the western slopes are rocky, steep, and bare.  Makes for nice morning hikes and not so nice afternoons. Tonight's camp was right at mile 200 on the maps!