Yesterday we saw six hikers and five people on horseback. It was our most social day on trail. There a few and far between people out here. I really didn’t expect this to be so desolate.

Once on the trail, we were able to keep our feet dry for maybe five minutes. We crossed many rivers today, but the last two were shake your hiking poles kind of crossing. We had the last, at least I hope so, of our Ninja Warrior Training Course. Three miles of straight up log jams. Our time for each mile was 51:00 minutes. That’s almost a mile per hour. We have been typically hiking two miles per hour including breaks. So this was painstakingly slow.

By noon, we finally hit the junction of N. Fork of Sun River. This is our new and improved route to Benchmark. The Bob Wilderness has not been the nicest to me, or Natalya. I think if you want to cure someone of backpacking, this is the place to do it! This trail has not seen any maintenance for years. Ends up “The Friends of Bob” is a coalition of eight people. And I’m sure they are all volunteers. And it’s hard to access. I will not be doing a repeat of this place. Not for a Million Dollars, not for anything I can wrap my head around. Good riddance Bob.

Thank God there are other ways to get to Mexico. Ends up the Sun River is the prime choice for the majority of CDT Hikers. It’s maintained much more so than the CDT and it has stellar views of the surrounding mountains. Something we haven’t seen much of. Both HoboBlue and I were stoked to see the China Wall from above. This is the one caveat to not taking the Red-Line. The China Wall stretches for miles and hugs the east side of the CDT. Well folks, we had a view of it from the east side and it’s just as beautiful!

Our afternoon was nice hike on the trail, no more blowdowns but still a few patches of mud. Most of which we walked around. A couple of hellacious river crossings that made my poles shake in thigh deep water. But besides that, it was a fine day.

After crossing the North Fork of Sun River, I saw my first Northbound CDT Hiker. Ein started April 1 and has beelined it from Mexico to here in a little over three months. That’s thirty plus miles a day! He was a bit disheveled as his DEET Bug Spray leaked all over him, his pack and clothes. First of all, that stuff is bad news and probably a Class 1 Carcinogenic. His two shirts had turned colors, his skin was red from the irrigation of all that DEET all over him. We stopped and accessed the situation. I had a Tide Pod for when I get to town to do my laundry. I gave him that, and my extra long sleeve shirt, as he had nothing to wear that wasn’t drenched in bug spray. We talked for a bit, and he was extremely grateful for our help. I wish we could’ve done more. With his youth and drive to get to Glacier, EIN hopes to be there in two days. I sure hope he does.

With our lackluster start, we pushed out another 7-8 miles, found a knoll and pitched camp. We had dinner on a bridge just short of camp being there was quite a bit of bear scat and it seemed like a good thing to do. Outside of that, just another day on the trail.

This wilderness is only held back by the desires to explore it. Once Natalya and I left the CDT Red-Line, our eyes opened to such beauty and abundance.

“Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭54‬:‭2‬ ‭NIV‬‬