Stateline Scouting
At the beginning of the summer I went through kayaking and backpacking training. We did a scouting trip on the Stateline trail for backpacking. Luke Underhill led the trip. Luke McPhee, Lindsay Robinson, Jessica T., Chuck Shields, Eric Harris and I went on the trip. It was a very relaxing trip. We slept in, hiked 5 or 6 miles a day, and ate a lot of food. I brought the most food I had ever brought up until that trip. Then on the Northshore Wilderness Adventure I brought even more food. And on the Great Bear scouting trip I brought even more food than that. It was awesome. I was almost never hungry backpacking this summer. I had to make myself eat my snacks. We spent 3 nights on the Stateline trail, the first at Cliff Lake, the second on the backside of Binocular peak, and the last at Missoula Lake. The first day was a lot of fun because we hiked up a steep draw on a huge snowpack over what is usually a rockslide. Then we scrambled up a 4th class section of rock to get to the top of Eagle Cliff. I made my own tarp shelter the second night, and slept at quite an angle. It rained on us the second evening and we made a tarp shelter for all of us. It turned to snow the next day as we did a short hike to get picked up. Eric Harris and I had fun climbing trees each night to hang bear bags. I taught him the value of climbing bare-foot. We met a guy with a huge german shepherd dog who told us we were crazy to be in cougar country without a dog and a .45.
