2023 CDT - Day 12 - Tower Rock, Fourth of July!

Decided to stay here.

Fourth of July at Tower Rock BLM Campground, Carmen, ID.

Happy Fourth of July!! It was nice having the wind blowing through the trailer windows during the night. I read for a while and watched the clouds drift by in the evening sky. In the morning I put my flag out again and walked over to use the park toilet. The BLM maintenance guy had come yesterday evening and finally emptied all the overflowing garbage cans, cleaned up the bathrooms and put TP in them. They were a mess. The nice part now is there is no one else here except the Arkansas gang and one other family besides me. It was funny to see the one other family here actually drive the 200 feet from thier campsite to the bathroom. I guess I shouldn't talk, it's only 24" from my bed to my bathroom in the trailer.

Watching the clouds go by from bed.

I decided not to move on until tomorrow. It's only $5 a night here and I can run quickly into town if I need something and I can get Runningbird a Subway sandwich in the morning before I head out. And, I can use the nice clean pit toilet for now.

For those interested, or you can skip this if not, I went from my 24 foot rig, which was really quite nice but too heavy, to this new 15 foot teardrop trailer just last month. Here are a few observations -

This rig is less than half the weight of my Creekside and more aerodynamic. It's built in Ohio by an Amish company, NuCamp. Some years ago the company was called "Little Guy". Holds only 22 gallons of water compared to my Outdoors RV Creekside (ORV) 78 gallons of fresh water. For waste tanks, only 10 gals. black compared to 45 and 12 gals. gray compared to 45. On the other hand, T@B has 200 amp lithium batteries vs. 100 amp. Lots of pluses and minuses.

Most of the day was spent just hanging out and watching Runningbird's track. I could see there were many places she was having difficultly keeping with the trail. At one point I actually called her and left a message telling her she was going the wrong way. Fortunately she didn't get the message as I had her in a different spot than she actually was. I figured it out about 15 minutes later. Round about supper time I saw she was arriving at the last possible place where I could get to her until tomorrow night. I also read on "Far Out" comments from other hikers that there were several deviations on the trail that would have her leave the trail and cut around because of rock slides and trail maintenance and the directions had the trail now even more confusing than it already was. I started to contemplate getting in the truck and going up a dirt road I wasn't familiar with hours before dark. Her track hadn't moved for almost an hour so I guessed she was stopping there for the evening. I prayed about it for a while trying to decide which she would appreciate more; me coming to the rescue or leaving her to do her hike. I was anxious. I Google mapped he distance and estimated time. Theoretically I could make it up there and back before dark but I had no idea what king of road it was. At least I wouldn't be towing the trailer this time. I put a few snacks in the truck and headed in her direction. I had no idea if I would be able to find her. I showed up once before unannounced when she was doing the PCT in Southern California and she did not appreciate it. I was torn.

Fourth of July Creek CDT Access road on the Fourth of July.

As I rolled north up the highway I watched to see if I could get a cell signal to see if she was even still in the same spot. If she had moved on? Then nothing. And nothing ventured nothing gained. There was no cell signal. I passed Fourth of July Creek Road and as today was the fourth I took it as a good omen. I was grasping at anything to justify my action. Not a whole lot of rationality there. I pulled off the highway and on to the small dirt road heading on up into the mountains. It was a small dirt road with lots of switchbacks but reasonably smooth. Several times I was going to turn around and go back but there just wasn't much opportunity to turn around. The sun was still visible when I could see through the trees and I kept going. Finally I arrived at the top at Big Hole Pass and there at the cross roads I saw her tent. I called out "knock knock" and she stuck her head out and called my name. She was just preparing her dinner and came out into the mosquitos to greet me. She was relieved! Overjoyed. She said she had been praying that I might come and if I didn't her plan was to hike down the road I came on, only in the other direction which a sign right there said it was 16 miles to the highway on the other side of the mountains. The trail had been so unclear that she was quite frustrated. She packed up her tent and gear, grabbed her soup, and we headed back towards Tower Rock campground and arrived before dark. We set up the little portable shower tent we had bought and took a quick shower before bed. Phew! I made the right choice. We were s both pretty amped up and even after taking a melatonin gummy it was hard to fall asleep. Hope you all had a good Fourth!

Big Hole Pass, Idaho - Montana border, CDT.

Runningbird packing it up. "Let's get out of here".