Helena

Hey everyone, we are in Helena this morning (actually last night) and about to go shopping for some food for the next 4 days to get us to Anaconda. Before I take a trip down memory lane I will tell you that we have decided that we will do the Anaconda cutoff route instead of the official route around Butte, which will allow us to stay with our now nearly-perpetual hiking partners, Hui, Vocal, and Mojave. This will also save us 3 days of hiking, so we will get further into Montana/Wyoming before flipping down to Ness's wedding August 19-20 in Durango. So our schedule may be slightly screwed up (At this point I think we will be 1 day ahead, maybe two, starting this thursday when we get to Anaconda).

This last segment was fast and fun and a little tough but mostly beautiful scenery mixed with hail and lightning. We left Lincoln about 9:45 with a nice ride from our new trail angel, Mike. Mike is driving his van along with Irish and Flop, who got to Lincoln on our zero day. Mike drove us all up tot he trail at Roger's Pass and we had a group of 7 to hike to Flesher Pass (14 miles). The hiking was real nice, a big climb and then real easy walking on the divide with great views, some wind, and nice temperatures. When we got to Flesher, Mike was there to pick up Irish and Flop, who would go back to Lincoln for another night, and he had cold drinks and extra water for the rest of us. We ended up hanging out at Flesher pass for two hours. We met a northbound hiker named Mr. Return (Ryan) who was hiking from Butte to Bend, OR via the CDT, PNW trail, and PCT in a counterclockwise loop. We also got some Budweiser from a passing motorist named Tracy, who was definitely a character.

We only did 4 more miles before camping and it rained during the night so in the morning everything was wet and we sortof got a late start considering we were going for a 25 mile day (due to water scarcity). The day started out relatively easy and we took lots of breaks in the morning at water sources and at Stemple Pass, where Mike was again waiting for Irish and Flop and so we saw him again. The latter part of the day had lots of steep climbing and little water and involved a very ferocious lightning and hail storm while we were on a ridgeline, so it was all very tiring, but we finally made it to Dana Spring late in the evening and camped witht he cows.

Yesterday we had about 20 miles to do to get to town and we got up early so we could make it by mid-afternoon. A lot of the hiking was on gravel roads and it was fairly easy until we hit the divide just north of Mullan Pass, where the trail (a jeep road) was intersected by a whole bunch of other jeep roads and trails and there were so many trees it was hard to see landmarks. We got separated from Hui and Vocal (who have GPS) and we ended up bushwacking along the continental divide for about an hour before realizing we were actually on a spur ridge east of the divide and about even with Mullan Pass across a valley. So we lost about an hour going down and then back up to get back on trail (at this point it was about 85 degrees; very sweaty). Too bad my navigational skills are backed by lots of confidence and less actual skill I suppose. After this catastrophe we were running low on water and a little testy (or at least I was) but we soon got to hike past an old narrow guage trestle and on an old railroad right of way, which was neat, and then we found a trickling stream where we didn't expect one, so the afternoon turned out ok.

When we got to Priest Pass we were about ready to start the biggest climb of the day but I got to take a slightly longer break than everyone else (at this point we had found Vocal) because we ran into a geologist (ooh!) who I wanted to talk to for a while and look at his geo-map, which I guess everybody else thought was nerdy, but it was exciting for me.

We got to McDonald Pass about 5 pm, which was later than we had hoped but Mike was there with some cold drinks and a ride into Helena for us, so hitchhiking wasn't necessary. All in all a nice, quick three days. I hope all of you are enjoying your summer as much as I am!

Travis