Day 104 (PNT 9)

Day 104 (PNT 9): 20 miles

(In the first picture you can see the whole ridge that is the Northwest Peak alternate which is what I did. Different note-I’m disappointed I forgot about the phrase big sky until recently. One of my favorites)

On the road walk up to the trailhead to begin the real climb, I saw a black bear. He was chill.

After a few miles I climbed up to Northwest Peak on a steep trail, but it was still at least a trail. When I reached the summit it was epic. It was kind of a wide summit with a shelter on top so there wasn’t one point where you could see 360 degrees, but there were beautiful views in every direction. It was probably the highlight of the trail so far. It even had a privy on the summit, which I made use of.

After they summit, the interesting part began. There was no more trail. I had to bushwack over to the summit of Davis Mountain, and then bushwhack back to the trail. I knew it going in, but it was tough. It was super rocky most of the way, and really did a number on my feet.

But when I reached the summit of Davis Mountain, I was overjoyed. It was nearly as good as NW peak! But after that the true payment for the beauty came due. It was a pretty tough buschwack back to trail, not in the sense that it was through heavy brush, but it was 100% on large, unstable, and painful rocks. It was extremely slow going, and I was wavering and nearly falling a lot. It completely wrecked my feet and ankles. I was wondering if it would ever end, but finally, I made it off the rocks and back into the forest where I straightlined downhill to reconnect with the official trail through a lot of brush, some of which I’m sure was poison oak.

That pretty much drained me for the rest of the day. I needed water after that alternate so I had to go like a half mile off trail to get some and later the area I was hiking through was just super brushy with nowhere at all to camp so I went a quarter mile off trail on a wild goose chase to look for a campsite that a person on guthook described. I followed all his clues but still didn’t find anything decent. I’m camping on a pretty bumpy spot but at least it’s void of rocks and tall plants.