CDT Day 12 – Lemhi Pass

Date: 6/25/20

Daily Miles: 24

Total Miles: 229

Luckily the rain stopped during the night. Our tarps were still wet in the morning, but at least all of our sleeping gear was dry. It was nice to be able to pack up without rain, as that always adds extra pressure.

The day started out with dirt road walking and stayed that way for a lot of the morning. We came to the Sacajawea (interpreter and guide for explorers, Lewis and Clark) Memorial this morning where we were able to get water from a spring. Turns out that the spring is the headwater of the Missouri River. Pretty crazy to think that a major river we encountered on our Mississippi River canoe trip could start as such a small tranquil spring.

The weather today couldn’t seem to make up its mind. When we got up, there were still a few stray gray clouds, but it always looked like the blue skies were about to win out. It continued to look like that for most of the day. We would get a few sprinkles here and there, but didn’t give it too much thought, until it turned to hail and then flat-out rain. We finally had to give in and put on our rain gear. Luckily it didn’t last long, and then we were ready to rip our ponchos off, as we were so hot.

It seemed like a lot of the area we walked through today has been logged in the last decade or so. There were a lot of spots where the trees were all small and were growing very closely together. We also saw some lots that had been completely cleared with no new trees yet.

We also walked through several sectioned that had been severely burns in the last few years. Everything was still black and there was no new growth yet. We kept hoping that we wouldn’t be facing a young forest or a burned forest when we were ready to pick a campsite for the night.

We found a good campsite just before 7pm. Even though the sky is clear now, we all put up our tarps just so they could dry out from last night’s rain. Ace and MountainMan did another practice of putting up theirs tarps first and then their hammocks (what you need to do when setting up in the rain), since they had some hiccups last night. We gave them a few pointers today, so it seems like they were able to set up a lot quicker tonight.