lance creek restoration area to whitley gap shelter

sorry about the blog hiccups like broken images and no paragraphs. turns out apple likes to secretly append things to my file names. trying to be helpful, but in this case it breaks things. they should be fixed.

miles: 15.3

woke early to the sounds of others stuffing their gear after a not particularly restful sleep. i think i had my post dinner tea a little too late. i got up anyway and enjoyed a nice breakfast sunrise.

took far to long to get packed up and on the trail. i woke at 06:45 and hit the trail just before 08:30. gotta work on the efficiency.

the work of the day was to get through the required bear canister zone and up and over blood mountain to neels gap for a resupply before the storms due around 13:00. blood mountain was talked about as quite a climb, but the morning was beautiful and it went quickly.

blood mountain shelter is a mortar and stone building built right next to a large rock outcrop on the top of a mountain, miles from anywhere. i truly don’t understand why or how it was constructed.

headed toward neels gap, i had some mobile signal and so caught up with maggie and the parents. sounds like everyone made it home safely, which is good.

passed through flatrock gap, named after this crazy pair.

at neels gap there is an outfitter literally on the trail. you actually have to walk under the roof in order to continue. inside there was a dizzying array of gear and camp meals, including a freezer full of pizzas.

(i don’t know why the sign says neel gap. everything else says neels.) i was apparently somewhat high from the steep descent, and could not really comprehend much, but bought some food for the next few days.

outside the outfitter there is a tree . . .

so many hikers after only 3 to 5 days end up at neels gap and dump half the gear they brought. boots apparently end up in the tree.

just past neels gap, i entered the “raven cliffs wilderness” dun Dun DUN.

lots of views as i passed over a number of gaps and mountains. without tree cover the sun was starting to burn my skin. umbrella to the rescue!

then down into tesnatee gap before a brutal climb with more switchbacks than i care to remember. at the top however a spectacular view.

a short while later i reached my intended destination. unfortunately instead of the whitley gap shelter i was presented with a sign telling me it was 1.2 miles down a side trail. ugh. thankfully it was fairly easy. the beginning was completely overgrown with mountain laurel.

the shelter is a bit run down. the table is completely rotted, but not a problem as no one wants to actually use it because of COVID 19. we’re learning.

only 2 other folks here tonight. a fellow, ian who has been with me since day 1 and a woman i hadn’t seen until today.

weather tonight isn’t looking great. increasing chance of rain, and it’s already quite windy. sounds like good sleeping weather to me (provided i stay dry).

spring is almost here, which is a good thing, as i’m not loving all the brown photos.