June 16th – Near Kelso Valley Road to McIvers Spring Jeep Road

Woke up refreshed after sleeping literally on the trail. Luckily, there were no late night hikers or bears that came strolling down the trail.

Cruised down the trail to a water cache just 1 mile away from where we were camped. Loaded up on water and then headed back up into the mountains. We were back in the desert – hot, exposed, dry, and sandy. Luckily, there were a few clouds to help mitigate the sun and heat. We have been so fortunate to miss the usual heat in the last several hundred miles.

Eventually came to another water cache near a road and filled up again in preparation for a huge climb up which we could see afar – switchback after switchback for 3.7 miles. Eventually had dinner at the very top. Storm clouds started to roll in. It started to drizzle lightly during dinner, but never amounted to anything.

We headed back down the trail after dinner. Eventually it started to drizzle more – requiring us to break out the rain gear. It wasn’t a soaking rain, but enough to make us feel chilled and damp. We came to our camp target – McIver’s Spring Jeep Road. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite what I had expected. It was a burned out area – looking very similar to Washington clear cut land. Not the ideal, beautiful ridge to camp on. Being a jeep road, there were occasional pull outs with camp spots, but were littered with junk. We finally settled on a flat place for camp and set up the tent in the drizzle.