Miles Hiked: 18
PNT Mile 625
Louden Lake

Taxi Dave showed up at 6:30am and drove the Brits and me along the really pretty Similkameen River. He dropped us off 23 miles later at the gravel road. We started walking up a steep hill. We all have 7 days of food in our packs so they are very heavy. About 10 minutes later Jim drove up in a quad and offered us a ride. I couldn’t believe our luck. We didn’t see another car out there. Jim drove us 6.5 miles and up 2756 ft. That is huge. It was interesting talking to him. Like me he is the third of 8 siblings. 5 boys and 3 girls.

Thank you, Jim.

We still had plenty of climbing the rest of the day. Almost 5000 feeet. But that start got us out of the heat. In Oroville today it was supposed to get to 106°F.

We entered the Pasayten Wilderness which we will be in for almost a week. It’s one of the most remote and rugged areas in the Continental US. The PCT also goes thru it. Ever since 2009 when I first hiked the PCT and saw the Pasayten I’ve wanted to come back and hike this part. I’m finally here.

Unfortunately big fires have burned large areas of the wilderness in 2015 and 2017. Lots of trail reconstruction is still going on. And every year lots of trees fall. This year there seems to be a big effort to clear more of the trails. I feel lucky to be hiking the PNT this year.

Lots of wildflowers are still in bloom. We are now at 7000 ft and there are wide open meadows.

The skies are blue. We left the smoke while driving out of Oroville. Yay.

We are camped at Loudon Lake. We got here before 6 so had time to enjoy it.

This is as much of a sunset sky as I could stay awake for.