Yup. Well below freezing. Camp is north of 44* latitude at about 6600 feet and the temp dropped to 17*F before the sun came up. The furnace ran 20 minutes at a time with a 15 minute break between most of the night. It’s a toasty 65* inside and I have a cat on my lap (prrrrrr). My friend Tom, who camped next to us, does not have a real heater in his camper yet. It’s something he has planned for the future so I’m going to guess that it’s a bit chilly over there this morning. (after I wrote that Tom came over with his breakfast to eat in a warm kitchen)

In the shadow of the Sawtooth Range
I met my friend Tom and his 85% completed expedition vehicle near Stanley and after I took the 10¢ tour we went for a bike ride on the Fisher Creek Loop trail. The trail is in an area that burned a few years ago. The first part has a climb up a dirt road through the changing colors of fall. Yellow, oranges, and bright greens – delightful! The last half of the trail is single-track through burned areas followed by single-track through a nice pine forest.

Swamp Creek Ride
Day two Tom and I went up Swamp Creek about 5.5 miles. I think they named it Swamp Creek to keep people from going there. It was a great ride through forest along a creek on single-track the whole way. There were about 17 creek crossings in late Sept so I bet it’s real wet in the spring. We saw paw prints of a mountain lion on the trail. One paw print was placed precisely inside a horse’s hoof print and it filled the hoof print. Big kitty!

The Mountain Lion foot print is on top of a horse hoof print. The horse shoe print is visible at the top of the pic. And yea, we looked for claw marks and it’s not a dog paw print. We saw a bunch of them!

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