I left Storm Lake and went over Storm Lake pass.  Curiously, there are two Storm Lake Passes – I went over the other one yesterday. The lake was beautiful in the early morning with the surrounding mountains reflected in the mirror smooth water.   After reaching the top of the pass I descended 1000 feet and then started going up the the next pass.  And so on three more times.  I hiked and visited with Mayor, Mav, and Wingo who is a very pleasant older guy. Mayor writes books about thru hiking and says he is going to be writing one about this CDT trip.

During the middle of the day I crossed Goat Flat – a beautiful high alpine meadow. This is where the Anaconda Alternate rejoins the CDT. I stopped here for lunch and was soon joined by Mav. Mav is a good guy – I enjoy his company.

At one point today I stopped and visited with Mayor while he ate lunch. Mayor hiked the CDT once before but had to miss sections in order to support his girlfriend at the time. As a result he is completely re-hiking the entire trail again. I admire his determination and wish him well. He is a wealth of information about the coming trail so we had a lot to talk about. One other thing. Mayor says I look like Bill Paxton whom I don’t know.  I need to look this guy up when I get cell service again. Hopefully he doesn’t look like an idiot! 🙂

Mayor and most of the hikers in my current bubble camped at Rainbow lake which would make a 25 mile day.  I didn’t feel up to it so I settled for Warren lake and am camped here with Mav, Cricket, and about 1 million mosquitoes. It was a 19 mile day for me.