Mileage: 15.6km

Camping right by the water is always chilly and a recipe for condensation and this morning was no exception. As I nursed Toothless, Kyle tried to dry off the condensation to prevent it from getting knocked down on everything once Toothless was fully awake and ready to treat the tent as his personal bouncy castle.

We made good time up the pass – I’m not sure if it is because we knew what to expect or if it is just easier to spot the paths around the deadfall when you are heading in the prevailing hiking direction, but regardless of the reason this felt much easier and smoother than it did on our way down yesterday. We stopped at the pass for a snack break, prepared for the bug invasion, but thankfully the morning sun seemed to make them dissipate.

Once again, Toothless did some surprisingly good hiking along the floodplain and was willing to hike forward at a decent pace for an almost two-year-old. He was tired of walking just around the Horse Camp which was perfect timing as we needed him up in the carrier for going around the washed-out bits of the trail ahead. Once again, this went much easier and more smoothly than when we went through SOBO.

More floodplain walking and then up and over the cliff section and the near vertical descent on the other side. When we originally did this section in 2018, there wasn’t a path worn in and we went more inland on the cliff and descended a slightly more pleasant spongey moss section, but it had the large downside of depositing us in a boggy swamp at the bottom. The worn-in trail was steep and loose dirt which I wasn’t a huge fan of, but at least we didn’t need to walk through a gross swamp at the bottom. I took it slow, mostly descending backwards, and eventually reached the bottom.

Lots of great areas for camping around here – trees are spaced appropriately to provide a bit of shelter, nice flat ground, not too close to the river. It was great to be able to let Toothless roam a bit without worrying about him jumping into the river.

After dinner Toothless was quite upset he couldn’t be inside the tent with Kyle while he set up our beds. I took him on a walk to distract him which was unsuccessful until we found a bone and we played a rousing game of “throw the bone” until we were able to join Kyle in the tent.