Today was a fun day in spite of the road walk!

Breakfast at the B&B was delicious and leisurely. Our omelets featured veggies from the garden out front. The late start was well worth the second servings. Yum.

The morning miles were a road walk, first on a gravel road with little traffic and nice mountain views. The highway walk to Samuels was downright scary with the logging trucks whizzing by, the chip trucks scattering chips as the flew by, the garbage transports reeking as they thundered by between the normal traffic of cars and motorcycles.

We passed a barber shop and stood considering trims but decided that we didn't want to wait the few minutes until it opened.

Samuels was at the junction of the highway and Pack River Road. The gas station mini mart is good enough for a resupply. It even has fresh fruit so I bought an orange. They not only had a lunch counter to sit at while eating microwave food but also a very nice lunch room. As we were putting our packs away from foot traffic the waitress asked, "Are you the hikers? My brothers showed me you website." We even knew her name from our chat with her brothers just before the lookout a few days ago! Our huge sandwiches were excellent!

The stroll up Pack River Road was fun. The higher up we climbed the less traffic there was. We chatted with drivers when they stopped to ask what we were doing. The afternoon was quite warm. At tea time we looked for rocks or logs to sit in but there was just the dusty road. When I pulled out the tyvek to sit on and a SUV drove up and the driver handed us icy cold bottles of water. She said she would drive us to garden so we could sit in the shade for our break and then she also said that she would drive us back to this very spot. She and her husband are landscapers so the break in beautiful garden was all kinds of cool. Our normal 15 minute break stretched to a 90 minute treat.

We hiked until just before dark. Ken filtered water while I set up camp in a turnout with a fire ring and a wooden pallet. I used the Pallet for a table so we had upscale accommodations. Good food all day, good campsite and interesting people to talk to all day. That's why we...

We followed a mountain biker up the trail and met up with him again at the top! We left Fault Lake to hike cross country past two knobs to the saddle above Hunt Lake. Even without a trail the hiking was very easy on slabby rock through sparse vegetation. 

Rain fell as we started to make our way down the trail-less boulder field toward the chute to Hunt Lake. Our descent was too tricky to negotiate while wearing ponchos. We put on shells over our fleeces and let our packs get wet. We used our arms and quads to lower ourselves down enormous boulders to huge rocks. Still on boulders we then made our way around two sides of the lake and onto the Orange Dot Trail across and down even more boulders. I was ready for trail or road walking by the time we made it to Hunt Lake Road (which leads to Priest Lake Road). 

We chatted with a mother and her children, nieces and nephews while we rested and dried out at the beginning of the road. She gave us her cell phone number and offered a ride to Spokane from the trail's end when we finished! Our campsite was a wide spot on Hunt Lake Road. There was one SUV on the road as we walked down so we waited for them to leave before we turned in for the night.

Walking down the road was easy and we were spurred on by our glimpses of Priest Lake. We walked to Park Headquarters for a calorie-laden brunch. We carried sodas when we left for lunch and tea time. Miles flew by on the smooth road. We had plenty to look at as we walked: cabins and water toys like boats and jet skis. We got to Lion Head CG and made an early dinner while sitting at a picnic table at the lake's edge.

This is supposed to be grizzly territory so we got rid of our garbage and hiked on. The Campground host stopped to talk to us. He lives in Nevada so he knew where our hike started. We answered, incorrectly, "yes" when he asked if we knew where our next trailhead was located. He ignored our answer and told us it was an ATV trail in about 200 feet on the right. What a stroke of luck! We would have passed the new trail and looked for the old one .3 miles later! 

Our evening walk was as beautiful as any part of the trail. We had one last wade-with-shoes-on creek crossing and a stroll through mossy forest. We had planned on camping lakeside but weren't sure if bear boxes were there so when we got to a rock knoll we knew that we had found our camp site. The moon was just about full so we took photos of it shining through branches above our tent. What a perfect spot for our last night on the trail!

What a perfect hiking day...immaculate trail with marked junctions. The forest is so dense with enormous cedars that let only dappled sunlight light hit the ferns below. Upper Priest Falls was beautiful.

We reached the falls that mark the end of the ICT at about 3pm, then walked the 8 mile trail back to the road which made the mileage for the day 27.5. We reached the road after 7 pm which still gave us daylight to look for a ride. We knew that traffic was sparse on this one lane dirt road. 

In order to keep our options open we decided to cook without setting up the tent. Ken was filtering water under a narrow bridge while I sat on the edge. Headlights approached so I jumped up to wave for the vehicle to stop. We asked for a ride to Nordman, Idaho. They were going to Metaline Falls, Washington. We looked at each other and decided a bed was good. We would worry about getting back to our car tomorrow!

We had a ride! Ken dumped water...we were on our way to civilization! Our ride to Metaline Falls, WA, was up and over a mountain pass on a narrow dirt road west of where we finished. We got a room at the motel. A couple of hikers on the Pacific Northwest Trail had just stayed there.