Leadore, ID

We were pretty lazy leaving town. Had breakfast at the Silver Spoon again, packed up and left our packs with the front desk. Spent time at the library updating the blog, then sat outside enjoying the fine weather. Had lunch at the Little Blue Joint, pizza this time (not bad, but not great either.) Got some ice cream at Debbie's Restaurant, then called about that ride. He met us for drinks at the Sawmill Saloon, asked DP to help him move a truck and trailer to another trailhead for him, them dropped us off at Lost Trail Pass. We road walked up to Chief Joseph Pass, then took a jeep trail about six miles up to a spring where we made camp.



Woke to an army of mozzies waiting for us. We followed the jeep trail directly to the Divide and the ID/MT border. The trail was steep, so steep we joked we were back on the AT. It took what seemed like forever to get to a piped spring at Big Hole Pass. We made our way toward Bradley Gulch. We followed a faint jeep trail to an old house where we picked up the trail again. We had to ford South Fork Sheep Creek a couple of times and we were beat by this time. It was hot, muggy and the bugs would not leave us alone. The biting flies joined the mozzie army, and I finally doused myself in 100% DEET for sanity's sake. We continued slowly, climbing up to a ridge with a really nice trail. We found the headwaters of Fourth Of July Creek, cameled up, then continued a short bit before finding a great campsite in a dry meadow.

We climbed to a saddle and then traversed around a natural ampitheather. We were on the Divide briefly, before contouring around a ridge and headed towards Slag-a-Melt Lakes. We crossed Slag-a-Melt River on our way to Lena Lake. We climbed more using many new switchbacks until we reached a pass nearish to Ajax Peak. Here, we found we had done almost half our day, and were feeling good about it. We headed down to Little Lake then between Rock Island Lakes, following an old jeep trail. We crossed Miner Creek then climbed... oh did we climb... up steep switch backs. We were harassed by biting flies and mozzies the whole way. We thought that they would go away when we reached the ridge, but they were joined by spiders and webs. We slogged our way to Engeljard River through newly but poorly created trail to a jeep road. Having gone crazy from the bugs, we mistakenly took the road, but found out soon enough to bushwhack and cross Hamby Creek to a meadow. Following the blazes on the trees we climbed a faint trail to another ridge then down to Berry Meadow. There was a ruined cabin here so we made camp and escaped from the bugs in the sanctuary of our tent.

Another army of mozzies waited for us to come out of the tent. We layered up, then proceeded down the jeep road following Berry Creek for several miles. We came to a junction where we could go through more buggy forest or walk clear breezy road. We took the road, passing Big Hole Meadow, following Big Hole River to Skinner Meadow. Here we had another junction: follow Dark Horse to Cowbone Lake or road walk to Goldstone Pass. We chose the road again. We had passed river after rivulet, but not wanting to carry more water than we had to, we waited until the inlet of Skinner Lake to get more. Only, it didn't exist! Not wanting to backtrack, we pushed on hoping something would come up. We came to a junction where some ATVers were taking a break. They had just come down the road that we were about to go up, and informed us that there were springs by the road. We marched our way up in the heat of the day, without any water, when we came upon the first spring about a mile up. It was clear and icy cold. Nectar of the Gods! We drank our fill, then filled our bottles and went on. We made it to Goldstone Pass, climbed to an unnamed peak, took a break then started our ridge walk of the Divide. We pushed to Eunice Creek and made it with plenty of sunlight. We decided to take a logging road just past the creek. After about a half-mile, we took a break, broke out the Crown Royal, then stumbled along the road until we came to our junction to Patee Creek. Just after we got water the mozzie army reappeared and would not leave us alone, so we hurried up the creek to Trail and Divide, finding a place to set up and escape from the bugs.

Woke to deer wandering through our camp. We took to the trail fairly early and walked through monotonous woods. We followed cairns and markers towards Lemhi Pass. From here we went to Sacajawea Memorial Camp where we got water from a spring said to be the headwaters of the Missouri River so we stood astride the "mighty river". We follow the jeep trail up the ridges to the Divide and followed it throughout the whole day. We had great views of the Lemhi Range to the West. We got water from the "Gucci Polanski" Spring. We pushed on passing cows and scaring them off. As we were cresting a hill, a large herd of elk were in the way. There were about a hundred of them and they all stampeded past us. In good spirits we marched on, going up and down the hilltops. We upon Grizzly Hill, and knowing there was a spring nearby, we grabbed water for the night and found a nice campsite further up the trail.

Got going quickly so that we could get to town. We got to Bannock Pass in less than two hours and then we sat there. For three and a half hours! We saw eight total cars, six of them going the wrong way, one that never made it to the pass and one that was going to the relay station up the hill. After an hour and a half the relay car came back and drove us into Leadore. We picked up our mail drop, got a room at the Leadore Inn, and got a burger at the cafe, the only restaurant in town. The rest of the day was spent watching TV, ate at the bar again, then more TV.