Nearly ever since we got far enough north to see amazing sites, they have been shrouded in fog, clouds, or smoke. We have been looking forward to a clear view for some time and today was the first time we started to get that, though we were back in the clouds soon enough.
The morning started as it had ended the night before, chilly and wet. We woke up at our usual time and Tofu, Sherpa, and I walked relatively close together as we climbed the rest of the ridge. There was so much water on all the leaves and brush surrounding the trail and we were getting pretty wet.
Along the way we saw lots of birds of birds of prey and a few female grouse. Unfortunately I don’t know enough about birds to be able to identify the majority of what we see, but it was still neat to be surrounded by these unique birds.
We climbed over the ridge and a beautiful grassy valley was revealed below and we began our descent into it. It was really striking. On the way down I must have said something that annoyed Sherpa because I noticed she was mad at me. She stopped and I went ahead of her thinking that it was no big deal. We descended for a time into a forest and I stopped at a small stream crossing because I know Sherpa likes that. When she caught up to me it was obvious that I had hurt her feelings and it took us a little while to sort out but we were soon friends again.
We started walking through a lush forest and at some point caught up with Tofu and settled on having lunch at Pumice Creek. We crossed some pretty log bridges and one, on Kennedy Creek, that had collapsed into the water but was still crossable. After passing Kennedy Creek we again began to climb. After a couple of miles we arrived at Pumice Creek to have lunch. There were a few hikers that were drying their gear and hanging out on an outcropping just trail-west. We decided to be anti-social and found a spot that we hopped would be out of the growing wind a little north on the trail.
It turned out that we were very much in the wind and so lunch was a little cold. Sherpa bundled up in her classic Gi-Joe fashion. We were excited because we were going to make today a relatively short day, especially since it was getting wetter and wetter. After lunch we spent most of our time in a damp cloud before descending to our destination of Milk Creek.
When we arrived at Milk Creek we were ready to end our day. We were wet and tired. To our amazement we found that several thru-hikers had started a fire in-spite of the many fires threatening north and south of the trail. We were shocked that anyone could be so thoughtless. We did our best to glare at them as we walked around looking for a place to plop our tent. I threw my bag down to hold a spot for Tofu then went for water and Sherpa set up the tent.
When I returned, she had everything set up and soon Tofu arrived. After Tofu had set up her tent and Sherpa and I had eaten dinner, we invited Tofu to join us in our tiny tent. This became a new, short-lived tradition and we had a fun evening just chatting and hanging out together. We also did our best to talk loudly about the idiots that started the fire anytime we thought they might be passing by. Sherpa played her Final Countdown playlist, which she had made for the last day on the trail and when it was over Tofu said she needed to go to bed.
She left and Sherpa and I brushed our teeth and slipped into our bags. Soon we were fast asleep like little hiker babies.