Sawtooth Mountain

I realized this morning that I was light on food and needed to do a slightly longer day today in order to get to town tomorrow before I ran out. I got started at 9:00.

Very soon into my day, I got stung by a wasp or something on the back of my head. I must have felt something land on me because I reached back to scratch my head, which I assume pissed off whatever was sitting there, because in the next second my head starting burning. I felt a bug fall past my fingers as I tried to figure out what was going on under my hair, but I didn’t see where it fell. All I could think was that cannot be a good place to be stung and I’m in trouble if it starts swelling. I knew there was a trailhead in just under four miles so I started moving very quickly.

Half an hour later, I caught up to a couple of Alaskan ladies out for a section hike and they looked at the back of my head and could not find any stinger, and barely any swelling. I mentally felt much better then, although pain-wise, it still felt like I was being stung. The pain wouldn’t lessen for the rest of the day.

The sun was out briefly at times before lunch, but the air was cool enough that I kept my jacket on all day. Once it stayed cloudy in the afternoon, I even added my rain pants, and eventually my warm hat and gloves. I was hiking around the base of Sawtooth Mountain and went past many lakes. It did lightly rain a few times.

The clouds starting moving out in my last couple of miles. I had another unexpected view of Mount Adams before descending to where I would camp after 22.2 miles.