We woke up this morning to find Milk Monster asleep on the picnic table. I heard someone sleeping outside the shelter last night but assumed it was a hiker coming in late to find no room at the inn. It was a tight squeeze in the shelter with 8 of us and it was forecast a dry night so he thought he'd have more space on the picnic table!
It was another great day today, cloudy to start but then very warm and sunny but with a nice breeze. It was a mild night last night so all the snow had disappeared by this morning thankfully which made walking easier again, what a contrast from yesterday. We left camp at 8:45 and walked the first few miles with Wall E and Milk Monster mainly across the open grassland. We saw a few more wild ponies today in the distance, to far away for photos unfortunately and passed through 'The Scales', an old livestock corral. From there it was back into the usual woods and a short uphill to Stone Mountain, our last 5000ft mountain for a while. From the top it was a long downhill to Fox Creek, we stopped at Old Orchard shelter half way down for a brief snack break.
Another uphill to Iron Mountain and down to Hurricane Creek. It was getting very warm, we had to stop and refill our water bottles at the bottom from a stream. I changed into my thinner summer weight trousers, I couldn't stand my thick softshell ones on any longer, they were far too hot. We met a day hiker on the trail, Jane and her dog, we'd met her yesterday and she was keen to follow our blog. A nice lady we walked with her for a couple of miles to a road junction where she had parked her truck. It was another up and over from there down to Trimpi shelter where we're staying tonight, we arrived at 5.30. Iron Man and Extra Miles where here already as usual, they're very fast hikers, followed by Team Berlin and Doc and Mime. Its only an eight person shelter again so we are tenting, there's a nice flat camping area right in front of the shelter. It's another mild evening/night which means less layers again, hoorah! It's so nice not to be freezing cold and be able to sit outside and enjoy the milder evenings in camp chatting with our friends rather than hiding away in the tent to keep warm.
The coyotes were out again in the night, we hear them quite often, we've never seen any yet though. There was also a bird calling all night long too. It was calling when we arrived at the shelter, I may be wrong but it sounded like a large young bird calling for its parents who'd probably gone hunting for food. When we wake in the morning we can always hear the woodpeckers knocking away at the trees, two or three in unison sometimes.
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