Hey, another thru-hiker!

We had a long 8-mile traverse of the Lost Park valley this morning - a high valley @10,800 feet in the Lost Creek wilderness area. The stream through this valley was populated by very hard working beavers - lots of huge dams and beaver lodges. We didn't see any of the actual residents though.

The higher elevations in this area are populated by huge happy aspen stands, which provided some shelter from the off-and-on snow squalls. It finally cleared out by the end of the day, and actually got a little warm which was nice.

We met our first fellow thru-hiker of the trip, a retired dentist named Roger. He was camped at the bottom of a beautiful valley with a good stream running through it. It looked like a really cold campsite (cold air always flows through those deep valleys from the higher elevations, as we learned the hard way on the PCT) - but Roger was definitely enjoying himself.

We talked for a while, and we moved on a couple miles to a high point with panoramic views of the Ten-mile range, and Georgia pass, which makes our future look, well, snowy.

Brent