Day 97 (PNT 2)

Day 97 (PNT 2): 14 miles

With a guaranteed short day of hiking, I caught up on my sleep and slept in past 10. I made it up to Stony Indian Pass early in the afternoon. The ranger that gave me my permit said that it had steep snowfields and ice axe and crampons were needed. I knew that was probably baloney, but I expected at least some hazardous snow travel. There turned out to be none. There was absolutely no snow on the ascent and on the backside there was only like a 30 yard section of snow that was kinda steep but wasn’t dangerous at all. I didn’t mind today but I am a little upset now that he shot down my plan to do a more scenic alternate because he said the conditions were hazardous. Now I’m thinking that was also baloney. I can’t believe I forgot to convert ranger speak into reality, rather than just taking their fear-mongering at face value.

Stony Indian Pass was beautiful, but most of the day was spent walking through overgrowth that covered the trail. It was a little annoying however, after the Bigfoot Trail, it feels like nothing. I’m not climbing over trees every 10 feet and I’m not walking through poison oak constantly, so not much can hurt me anymore.

When I got to Waterton Lake in the afternoon, I took a nice lone break there. It was an unbelievable area. There was a ranger station and a bunch of deserted buildings around there which was a little odd but it would be just about the best place to live. Words and pictures can’t do the area justice.

My campsite was shortly after the lake but I opted to hike an extra half mile to avoid a ford. I saw 2 people doing it as I got to the river, but the water was up past their waist and I didn’t feel like getting wet. When I got to camp I found out that they were a couple from Japan and also hiking the Pacific Northwest Trail!

I called it a night pretty early in hopes to get up early and actually hike a big day tomorrow since I’ll be exiting the park and will no longer have restrictions on where I have to camp.

Song of the day: master of puppets-Metallica