At one point we crossed over enough snow that the trail played tricks on us. It crisscrossed underneath the snow on a switchback and headed back in the same direction it came from, only higher up the hill. That took a while to figure out!
The views are not as stellar as I remembered in 2004. A huge fire devastated the area in 2014 and we have probably hiked twenty miles in burn with just isolated pockets of trees. One area on the map is designated as Old Growth forest. Now it is just ash. The distant views are still wonderful, but my heart aches at what once was as I plod through the burn.
18 miles to a ridge above Cliff Lake, to mile 198.
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