We had hoped to backpack this one in two days, but weren't early enough in our campsite reservations. (Apparently you have to make them more than a week in advance, although I'm not sure why because there were NO people at any of the campsites we passed.) So we decided to just bite the bullet and do it in one day. My longest hike was 15 miles, and I figured 3 extra miles would be rough, but do-able at this point. What ended up happening is that we started at the wrong trailhead, and then took a short detour to refill our water bladders, so by the end of the hike my mileage counter told us we had hiked not 18 miles but 23 1/2 miles. And boy could we feel it! The last 5 miles were the hardest!

Aside from the extra mileage, the hike was beautiful. We were lucky to have chosen a day that remained overcast most of the time, because the trail is very exposed, and I'm not sure we would have made it if we'd had the sun beating down on us the entire time. We saw plenty of cows, two hawks mid-hunt, and a lot of dramatic skies. Of all the hikes so far this is the one I'm least likely to do again. It was just too long, and I didn't love the landscape enough to make me yearn to go back.