8/15/17
Josh back in the saddle here to take over story time for this long day. Today started off same as most mornings on the trail: cold, dark, and early. Up in the mountains the temperatures dip surprisingly low at night, so i often find myself needing to throw on all my layers before getting too comfortable. But when we get hiking all those layers are removed to make up for the 50 degree difference in temperature. We are getting good at timing our morning routine so that we're all packed up by the time it's light outside, but only when I don't lay around for an extra 10 minutes. So we got up, bags and bottles full of nice cold water from the creek, and set out on our forest road walk to start the day. Within the first hour we came across our first mylar balloon of the thru-hike! You know, one of those lightweight, vinyl, helium-filled specialty balloons for birthdays or other celebrations. When you have one it's a blast to let it go and watch it float up up up and away as it turns into just a speck in the sky... But they eventually come down and land somewhere, and they last forever. This one still had helium and never popped so I tied it to my pack and hoped it would perk up a bit as the day warmed up and as we would gain altitude. With the balloon on my back helping to lift the load of my pack, we continued to the trailhead of the North Kettle Crest trail. The PNT hikers ahead of us have either followed this trail or have opted to take the alternate route that parallels the mountain ridge trail, but along a road at the foot of the mountains. Since the smoke had cleared out and we are ultimately here for the challenge of the opportunities to glimpse into the beauty that this portion of the country has to offer, we agreed to climb the mountain at the cost of difficult miles.

Before beginning our ascent, we passed by the forest service folks we met the other day who were coming in for another morning of counting and identifying northern goshawks in the area. We made it to the trailhead; the end of the road and the start of the trail. There was an empty forest service vehicle parked there, so we knew to keep our eyes and ears open for potential friends. And then we climbed. And climbed. And climbed and climbed and climbed. Eventually we made it to the top of Copper Butte - the highest altitude for the day. We discovered that we could get mobile data up there, so we took an hour break and played on social media for a bit and quickly re-realized that nothing happening on the internet was as interesting as what we were experiencing. While we were poking away at our gadgets we were unexpectedly subjected to an aerial bombardment of goshawks chasing each other near ground level, weaving and darting between the thin foliage (and us) atop the mountain. We didn't know what they were at first, all we heard was the rush of wind as they whizzed by sounding like fighter jets.

By this time the Mylar balloon had been expanding under the heat of the sun all morning and was flying high. And as cool as it would've been to let it go and watch it float away into a speck over the horizon, I just couldn't bring myself to let it go. So we poked a hole in it and I inhaled the yucky old tasting helium and said things in high pitched voices and got dizzy and packed the trash in my bag. On our way across the ridgeline we met the forest service crew that was working with white bark pine trees across a transect (a line of trees) that had been established 13 years ago for data collection. The crew consisted of 3 ladies with tons of gear that they had hauled up the mountain, and they showed us a spot of cankers that they had found growing on one of the trees. We continued our hike along with our water slowly depleting as we knew it would without any water sources along our route. We eventually made it to our campsite just off of US 20 where a random lady in her car was leaving and informed us that she'd just seen a baby black bear in the area. We set up our tent anyways, ate dinner calories, and dove back into some Netflix episodes saved on my phone as a reward for another successful day.