The sun is setting, so I'm happy to call it a day, dismantle my rig and set up camp right here. I look forward to waking up here tomorrow and doing a day hike up to that old mine site and beyond.
It gets dark and I prepare my first just-add-boiling-water backpacking meal of the trip: Mountain House Beef Teriyaki. Excellent.
It's a bit windy tonight, but the wind dies down from time to time to allow silent moments broken only by the rumbling of an occasional train down in Kelso Valley a few miles away.
I stay up until midnight to see the late-night moonrise; until then it's dark, dark, dark out here where there's nobody except me, my bike, my tent, and my flashlight.