Evidently they crave salt and minerals that are found in sweaty clothes/gear from campers, and they have no problems just busting into your camp to get it. Two women we had been out for a 7 day outing warned us before we suffered any losses, but evidently a deer chewed a hole in one of their shirts and was caught licking the salt off the trekking pole straps of the other woman.
We put all our stuff away to avoid incident, but it was amusing to hear these deer running through the campsites all night long. I was just glad we had seen these deer during daylight, otherwise I think Jill might have not slept a wink as she had noted that our campsite was directly near some berries that she thought would appeal wildly to bears.
The aforementioned women had told us about a spur trail on the trail we would be traveling for our way out, as they had come up the opposite direction (like everyone else). They told us the trail was "hardly traveled" but definitely worth the extra mile that led to a glorious waterfall that appeared nearly untouched by humans.
We slogged our way down a narrow, overgrown path for several miles finally arriving at the junction for the waterfall trail. Of course, it would be a mile climb to the waterfall as nothing worth seeing ever seems to be on a flat trail. As we pushed through chest high weeds, we finally came upon the waterfall and it was indeed worth the extra work.
A waterfall along the way to a bigger waterfall
Yes, that is the trail
After some snacks and a ton of pictures, we headed back down. The final couple of miles to the car would be tough. Jill was starting to feel the effects of three hard days hiking on 1200 calories per day. We couldn't decide if we should press on to the shuttle pickup or if we should stop, eat lunch and then continue. Our decision was pretty much made for us as we rounded a corner to see a rather large pile of very fresh bear scat. We didn't think it would be prudent to fire up some mac and cheese with a bear in close proximity, so we sucked it up and headed to the shuttle stop.
Jill crosses the suspension bridge towards the end of our journey
After another mile or so, we started seeing lots of people, which is a dead giveaway that you are getting close to the roads. The final push was tough as the temps were climbing, it was uphill and we were starving. Finally, we rounded a corner and saw pavement. We had a brief hike down the road to the shuttle stop, but we had arrived and maybe more importantly we had survived.
Jill points out our start and finish on the shuttle map
And one more cheesy closeup to cap off our journey
8.62 miles
1,708 feet of elevation gain
And for the total trip our numbers stacked up as follows:
23.84 miles traveled
7,394 feet of elevation gain
9:49 moving time for a 2.5 mph average
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