What a day on the great divide. I did not sleep great as I had thought might happen. But all was well in the morning, although it was chilly and there was so much condensation on my tent fly and everything felt damp. I warmed up quickly with a big climb up to a ridge and then had to follow the ridge to a sort of summit.

As opposed magic of yesterday’s ridge, this one was tricky to navigate with some scrambles. The trail was also hard to find in places, a theme of the day. I ended up going down from the summit on the sketchiest slope, half crouching in slippy rocks above a steep slope. I eventually found the real trail that wasn’t that much better. After another tricky bump to get up and down, it was the main event, Coulotte peak.

It was the most straightforward climb and descent of the day although it was still very steep and in scree. It was more of the same after getting down from the peak, steep ups and downs with hard trail to find, which was sometimes very exposed. It was also blazing hot, but at lunch time it clouded over. I was thankful at first, but then as I was coming down the last section of ridge, I noticed some really dark clouds coming over the peaks. I tried to hurry down, but it was still scree and steep drop offs, so didn’t want to rush too much either.

I finally got off the ridge and down into some trees when the skies opened with rain and hail, the lightening and thunder followed shortly. It was longer and more intense than yesterday’s storm and I didn’t have anywhere to pitch a tent so I just sheltered under my fly. I got uncomfortable eventually so just stood in the trees for a while. I waited for the worst to be past and got moving again since I was getting cold. It was down this old forest road/ATV track, steeply, on and on. It was rocky and wet, but not slippery thankfully and eventually the trail flattened out. I had to cross a few streams that had swollen with the rain. They were fine, but the water was definitely flowing. I also glimpsed the summit I had been on earlier, covered in white. Everything was soaked and the trail was overgrown in places so even once the rain stopped, I still got drenched. I eventually got to a bridge and since the sun had come out, I decided to rest a bit and dry my tent fly and rain gear. It was then that I realized that my pack liner has a big gash in it. I luckily have all my stuff in waterproof stuff sacks inside the liner, so nothing was wet. I don’t like that one of my waterproof layers is ineffective now but I can pick something up at the next town in a few days I dare say. After the drying session, I continued on and made it into a place called Castle Mountain. There’s supposed to be a campground, but it seems to be all RVs and no one around to ask since the kiosk closed at 4 pm and it’s 7 pm. I just set up in some trees and had dinner by the river before cleaning up and calling it a night. As I write this in my tent, it sounds like another couple arrived and are setting up nearby , which makes me feel that it should be ok.