Daily Miles: 17.5
Total Miles: 369
Camp Elevation: 5,500 ft
Well, last night’s sleep wasn’t the worst night of sleep on the trail, but it certainly wasn’t the best. The Zrests will take some getting used to if we are going to use them on a regular basis. We got up and rolling and on the trail by 6:30.
We had about five miles to our first water source for the day. The trail was very nice and started out with rolling hills. We had great views of Roosevelt Lake, the Salt River, Four Peaks and the other surrounding mountain ranges. Really beautiful.
After we passed a trailhead, we started a big climb up and eventually came back down quite a bit for our first water source. The water was nice and we stopped for a while and did some laundry. We loaded up with water, as our next water source was ten miles away.
The day continued to be full of a lot of uphill climbs. Mid-morning we crossed into the Four Peaks Wilderness. The trail was quite nice and it was a welcome change from some of the trail we walked the previous two days.
We ate lunch right in the trail, as there wasn’t much chance to get off it with the bushes growing so close together.
Shortly after lunch we passed by two people out riding their mules (which looked a lot like horses). After passing them, we could see the impact they had on the trail. It was surprising how much damage and impact just two mules can have on the trail. It is surprising that horses are allowed in wilderness areas, but mountain bikers aren’t, even though it seems that horses do more damage to the trail than bikers.
In the late afternoon we walked through an area which had experienced a forest fire. It didn’t seem to have happened too long ago as the only thing that had grown back were wildflowers. It made for an interesting landscape with the various colors of flowers next to the blackened trees.
We ended up stopping a bit early, as we came across a section hiker named Mosswater who had set up camp. We got to talking with him and decided to call it a day. It was fun to talk with him about hiking, as he had hiked the Appalachian Trail back in the 70’s and has done some other hiking which we have also done.
We are happy to be hanging in our hammocks tonight. Hopefully we will be able to catch up on some sleep we missed last night.
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