Today’s trek to Valley City was not that much fun. Not every day on the trail is a good one.
The forecast called for storms starting around 7 p.m., but it began raining (lightly) in the morning. You never know if things will get worse, so I threw everything into the car and messed up my packing system. Yes, I have a packing system.
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Heading Out from Kathryn
I drove to Valley City to gas up and get ice, then drove a few miles to my ending point. Mary met me here for the shuttle back to Kathryn. It was cold and super windy, but by the time I headed out from Kathryn, it was sunny and nice.
The first few miles were supposed to be on an old railroad bed. But the 
ground was rocky and there were few markings and the vegetation was high, so I just walked on the road.
A few miles out of town, the trail seemed to wind around a farm. Well, it did, but the markings were poor and I had to backtrack. Then, the trail was invisible (no markings or mowed trail), so I had to walk with the app in hand. Eventually it again piggybacked on an old railroad bed. It was so hard to walk on rocks, plus knee-high vegetation.
Slogging Through the Day
Not to complain (although I know I’m complaining), but the rest of the day was not fun. There were a lot of miles on sparcely marked farm fields. Once, I skipped a stile because it seemed old and led into unmowed cattle pasture, while there was a nice path alongside. Well, this path eventually ended, so I had to crawl under a barbed wire fence to get to the pasture. Sigh.
Near day’s end, I was on roads. Yay! But rain spattered on and off, and the winds were more than 25 mph (40.2 kph) – and had been for much of the day.
So, yeah, a tough day between the rain, the strong winds and walking through so much unmowed grass.
Ed met me today. Yay! We were supposed to camp tonight in Valley City, but there are thunderstorms predicted tonight, so we booked a motel room instead,
Snowshoe
ND NCT miles today: 20.6 (33.2 km)
ND NCT miles to date: 139 (223.7 km)
Total NCT miles to date: 3,041 (4,894 km)
Total NCT miles to go: 1,559 (2,509 km)
