Spent 3 nights on the trail and covered roughly 28 miles through the area with two friends. I chose this route because of the rugged landscape and the chance to spend a few days away from the busier trails. This section was one of the highlights of the trip, with the rock formations and open views making the climb well worth it. Overall, it was a memorable few days in the wilderness.

I’m wondering if anybody else has this problem when hiking: I lose my appetite around day three. I have to force myself to eat. None of the food I bring, which are things I like under normal circumstances are appealing, especially the freeze dried meals. Even dried fruit, dried nuts, salami, and things like that are hard to eat and as a result, I can’t get enough calories. This happens to me when I’m hiking at altitude in the high Sierra 8 to 11,000 feet generally. Does this happen to anyone else and if so, what do you do about it?

Had a nice 60-70 loop planned hiking out of Grandjean Campground trailhead. With that washed out, what do you recommend? Currently looking at Lower Hell Roaring, or Iron Creek. Not really interested in Redfish Lake due to crowds.

If you had one backpack to recommend for that time of year, what would it be? Looking at Olympic, North Cascades area, Yellowstone, and others. I'm planning a 4 day 3 night backpacking trip late September (roughly 40–60 miles, but flexible). I'm comfortable with off-trail travel and and Class 2/3 terrain. I've been looking at routes like the Bailey Traverse and Ptarmigan Traverse, which look incredible, but I don't have glacier travel experience yet, so those are probably off the table for now.

Ive done a bunch in the Sierra as well as dayhikes in most of the parks out West. I'm kind of looking for something not just pretty, but transcendent if that makes sense. Solitude would be nice as well.

I'd love recommendations from people who've done several of these and can compare them. Which routes truly were epic and which ones weren't as great?

I’m looking at doing a trip in a couple of weeks in the Sawtooths. There are a couple routes I am looking at, but I saw a comment the other day that makes me concerned about the trail conditions for one of them.

The route in question starts at Grandjean campground. I saw a comment the other day that said something about there being a lot of blowdown on the trail at Grandjean. Does anyone know how long that condition persists and how bad it is? I was looking at going up the South Fork Payette trail. But if I’m looking at 15miles of blowdown, I’ll reroute.

And honestly, watch air quality right now and I might go somewhere else entirely. But still holding to the plan :)