I simply don’t want to leave the cabin this morning. That was the best 33 dollars I spent on this trip. I delay leaving until 10am. I then start my battle with the mosquitos as I load my pack raft again. Overnight, there was a decent thunderstorm and rain so you can imagine how insanely thankful I was that the rain happened when I was in a cozy cabin!

Today the river travel was a breeze. Only a handful of times getting stuck in low water and I had pretty mountains to look at, though there is still some haze from the nearby wildfire.

After about 2 hours, I encountered the first (and only) people all trip. A group of Germans were camped below a beautiful mountain. They were using canoes and I can’t even imagine how difficult it was for them to go through the low water. Pack rafts seem to only need like 4 inches of water while canoes seem to need quite a bit more (in my experience).

It took about 3 hours before I got over seeing those people. I was very much looking forward to not seeing a soul the whole trip, but seeing one group in 7 days is not the end of the world.

I set up camp on a gravel bar and catch my first nongrayling of the trip. It was an above-average pike that fought pretty hard. I was happy to hear my drag going once again after all those small graylings.

At around 11pm when in my tent, I hear my first big game. It sounds like a grizzly groaning as it makes its way through the thick brush behind my tent. I quickly grab my shotgun and stand outside my tent yelling a half-hearted "hey bear!". I never ended up seeing it, but it was for sure a big bear. Surprisingly, I fell to sleep somewhat quickly after that.