July 29
Mile 82.5 - Mile 93.1
Whitefish Divide Trail, Blue Sky Trail #74

Waking up to clear skies, a beautiful sunrise, and a hasty breakfast, we packed up and hit the trail, climbing once again to reach another peak. One more decent followed by one more steep ascent brought us to the top of Mount Locke. Making our way down the mountain, we travelled through the Gibralter Burn area making it difficult at times to locate the trail. A little less than mile from the top we found our next junction and turned west to follow the Blue Sky trail to our next camp site. Without going into too much detail here (more info will be included in the blog about this section) this next section, to date, was by far the most challenging. Shortly after joining Blue Sky trail we traversed  a mile long blowdown. When we reached the Blue Sky creek crossing we were bleeding, bruised and thirsty. Following the creek for the next six miles our trail was wide with a gradual down hill grade. We camped in a large open meadow next to FR114, where Blue Sky and Graves creek converge. Although none of our injuries were serious, there were enough of us with multiple open wounds that we made the decision to modify the rest of our trip. Before we began this trip we had arranged for a friend to meet us at this location to swap out clothes and food, and to prepare us delicious grilled burgers, potatoes and watermelon...which we thoroughly enjoyed!