Willows, Willows, Willows

Happy Independence Day!  This is the third 4th of July in a row that I've been on trail.  We met some hikers out for the holiday.  One couple we met said two weeks ago they were postholing up here and couldn't see the trail.  Now there's hardly any snow at all.  

There is however large sections of the trail overgrown with willows.  Sometimes just ankle high.  Usually knee high.  And sometimes the trail is a trench and the willows are over my head!  They scratch but provide some protection from rain.  In fact I'm currently camped in a flat spot surrounded by willow bushes.

The trail was quite diverse today.  It descended through forest down to a meadow.  After that it climbed again and stayed high following a valley.  

Then we were up on a ridge for a while.  We saw a herd of elk, we think they were elk, playing on the mountain across from us.  They were calling to each other and running around.  They seemed to be having fun.  There were two pretty big climbs today.  The last one took us up to squaw pass and we ended our day on the other side.  We waited out another afternoon thunderstorm but this one was just thunder and rain.