July 30th
Spring before S Fork Odell Creek (1,964)-1mi before Little Table Mtn(1992.6)
Campsite Elevation: 8,339ft
28.6mi
This will be a short entry because not much happened today and I am really comfy and dozing off in my tent right now. All six of us (Rampage, Bloodbath, Sweet As, Dain, Cherry Picker, and myself) hiked together again today. We woke to a dark cloud and some raindrops that hung around a bit when we started hiking at 7:10pm. Along with the impending rain, we had a late night last night and long day yesterday, so we were a little slow to get ready today.

The guys hike faster than myself and Rampage, so we hung back a bit today. We kept pace yesterday knowing Bloodbath deserved some male company for a change, but we knew we wouldn’t be able to maintain that constant push for multiple days. We were definitely feeling the effects of yesterday and the fact that we have done a long stretch of 9 days in a row with big miles. It didn’t help that today’s trail was quite overgrown and brushy. Much of the day reminded me of a car wash without the cleansing water with all the brush we were walking through. The first half of the day ended up being quite sunny and hot too. We went through a burn area for awhile with a lot of faint trail and downed trees to climb over.

The brush and tall grass was just the most annoying part of it all. Here is Rampage in one of the better sections.

Near lunch time, we saw Portrait and Castle. Castle was pretty sick as we had heard from southbounders this leg and they think they both got a bout of the Norovirus from Yellowstone. That would suck! In the late afternoon, we had a climb up onto the Divide and the thunder clouds had gathered just as we hiked up.

It ended up raining pretty steadily for an hour or so and even had some hail. The temps dropped pretty fast too. It was good timing to have something to cool us off on the climb. We had dinner on trail about 6:30pm to avoid eating where we camp in case of bears, and ended the day hiking in woods with a final steep uphill before camping just after 8pm in a fairly protected area.

Rampage and I listened to The Secret Life of Bees audiobook to help at the end of the day. I also managed to drop my Chapstick for the third time on trail. Good thing I carry two. Here’s a new one, I managed to forget my toiletry ziploc at camp this morning. I think I dropped it after I used it and was getting my food down from the bear hang this morning, so I was distracted and didn’t notice. Good thing we have town tomorrow!
Yep, I’m a tired camper and am very much looking forward to our nero in Lima tomorrow. We are now 10mi from the pass into town and it will be a nice downhill on a dirt road tomorrow. Tomorrow is also a big day for me. It is my 100th day on trail and I’ll hit 2000mi!

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