The itinerary for this day was to get over Bussard Mountain (Yes, that is an incredibly fucked-up and frankly indefensible way to spell “Buzzard”) and into the next valley, then catch a hitch into Bonner’s Ferry.

The climb up to Bussard Mountain was a fairly average 3000-foot climb: long, slow, and exhausting. Dirt bikers had built a bunch of new trails at the top, so the trail guide directions were incorrect, and I hiked about 30 minutes in the wrong direction. I reached a bare summit, then pulled out my map and compass and realized I could see the Bussard Mountain summit about a mile and a half to the south-southwest.

Gourmet hiker lunch.

After metaphorically throwing my hat on the ground and jumping and stomping on it like that one Looney Tunes character, I made it back and started working my way down the mountain. I took the longer alternate-route dirt roadwalk at 0242P instead of bushwhacking through a swamp, which I think was the correct decision even though I was tired and my feet hurt. I had my first thimbleberries along that roadwalk.

Hitching on US 95 kind of sucked. I think it took about an hour and a half to get a ride. I eventually came to this scenic overlook, and stood in one spot hitching before the pull-off.

The Kootenai river valley.

I was picked up by three teenage boys in a pickup truck, all shirtless and returning from a fishing excursion. They passed me by once and honked their horn at me, then came back for me about 5 minutes later, whipping the truck around in the middle of the highway. Beggars can’t be choosers, I guess.

I had my new friends drop me off in the downtown area - it was the middle of some sort of town fair, a grotesquely patriotic ordeal that reminded me of the beauty pageant at the end of Little Miss Sunshine. I gawked at all the weirdos before ducking into a pizza shop, where I ate an entire pizza while binging on free WiFi. I camped out in the town’s fairground that night – the PNT Trail Town Guide said it was kosher.