2026 Road Trip - Day 14

Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2026 - A different sort of blog for today. I drove 30 miles today to get to the 4th of July Trailhead:

I started the day with breakfast at the Mountain Village Restaurant, with the best well-done bacon I have ever had! Back to the Redwood Cabins for an hour, then time to hit the trail.

It is a Beautiful Morning in Stanley, Idaho:

The 4th of July Creek Road is a little rough, but no worse than Manchester's road-to-the-transfer-station, before they paved it:

Not having seen a single car-or-person on the road, imagine my surprise when I got to the Trailhead Parking. There were a dozen kids from Sun Valley, and they were doing an over-night up at Washington Lake (this side of the mountain range):

I was all ready to go:

(except I forgot my iPhone charger cable!)

Nice maps and notices:

I started at 11 AM:

After 1-and-2/3 miles, I got to a trail-insection (the only sign I saw all day). I want to go up to the left:

Looking back across Fourth of July Lake and Unamed Peak 10713:

At 12:20, lunchtime at an unnamed lake:

My plan is to get up to the ridgeline, then drop down into The White Cloud Wilderness on the other side:

Funny - it looks a lot less imposing/difficult on a map.

At 12:51, looking back down behind me, and up ahead of me:

You can see there is kind-of-a-trail.

It was a very hard climb up to the ridge. At 1:18 PM here a 5 views looking over the ridge and up at the peak, from left-to-right:

A magnificant hike. I should have turned around there.

But NOOOOOO - I HAD A MAP, so "it must be ok" (somehow). NOTE: Just because someone has does something does not mean that I should do the same thing.

So I took some fun selfies, and headed down the crumbling backside:

DO NOT DO THIS! IT IS NOT SAFE! It took all my concentration and patience, which depleted my reasoning ability later. I came through with scratches, but rock-sliding is no fun with a 50-pound backpack!

Looking back up behind me, and then ahead of me (I see A TRAIL!):

It turns out I was in the Born Lake Basin, one basin north from where I wanted to be. But I didn't know that - it was just that what I was seeing/experiencing was not matching THE MAP. I headed left up the trail:

A great view back down where I had come from:

To make an exhausting story short, I wound up climbing back up over the ridge, but on the "official trail", and camping at a lake:

Astute observers will notice that this "unnamed lake" looks VERY FAMILIAR (hint: to the one where I had lunch)

Don't worry - I was so disoriented that I did not realize it at all.

When I shut-down my iPhone, I couldn't figure out why I was "back on track"???:

I just went to bed.
Thank you God for agetting me through this ADVENTURE DAY safe and sound!

Once again, Music for today:

in this morning's hotel room - Bill Evans - Complete Fantasy Recordings (Disc 2), - nice morning music:

On The Road: Because I was driving up 4th of July Creek Road, I need "Creek songs" = various - Songs from Dawson's Creek, 1999 compilation album:

Shameless Plug: if you enjoy this blog, you may like my other one about Hiking the 4,000 footers in New Hampshire/Vermont/Maine/New York:
hyperlink: dixonheadingnorth
http://dixonheadingnorth.blogspot.com/