Made it to Lincoln, MT

Hi everyone, this post may be briefer than anticipated as the library has a 30 minute internet window, 10 of which I have used checking my email already. If there is no line I will be able to flush out the details after my initial 30 minutes is up.

Liv and I made it to Rogers Pass last night about 8:15 and hitched down to Lincoln, MT with a very excited woman named Susie and her mother, grandson, and two dogs. Then we got a room at the Sportsmans motel, where Dan at reception was also very interesting to talk to. It is funny being away from people for so long and then getting to town and talking a mile a minute with such excited folks; we felt very lucky to have such a good night after a long day of walking in lots of rain to get to town.

Our trip from East Glacier was 9 days long, 6 1/2 to Benchmark Ranch (thanks Heckman's for holding a package) and 2 1/2 days to Lincoln. We hiked the whole way with Joel (except the last few hours) and most of the way with Hui and Vocal, which made a nice 5 person team and great group camping. We had very good weather for the entire nine day period except yesterday's rain and thunder.

We had heard that the Bob Marshall Wilderness section was going to be tough and involve a lot of snow and some bad river crossings, but it turned out not to be too bad. The first day we had lots of mud, a theme that would continue for large parts of the section, and our feet were constantly wet but it was more annoying than cold, as it was warm out. The first and second day involved a number of relatively easy crossings of the S. Two Medicine River and then late in the second day we had to cross Badger Creek just below the confluence of the north and south forks, which turned out to be our worst stream crossing. We were hiking with Joel and E.T. at the time and we spend almost two hours trying to find the shallowest place to cross before Liv finally had the bright idea to cross where it was deep and the current was slower, assuming that if we lost our footing we would only need a few quick swimming strokes to get to the gravel bar on the far shore. It turned out to work just fine and none of us lost our footing (though I was close on the last few steps) and we made it across except E.T. who didn't want to try it and decided to hike around on an alternate route that cost him about 7 miles total. We haven't seen him since then, but we think he will probably make Lincoln today, as Hui saw him the other day.

Day 3 we ran into Hui and Vocal about lunch time and the five of us hiked together for most of the rest of the section. The hiking for the next few days was largely in river valleys and in and out of burned areas, but the trail was well cleared and mostly very fast hiking. We did have to go through just a few hours of snow over Keven Mt and Switchback Pass. We have now officially named our five-some the Pirates of Switchback Pass, and we are hoping to catch some other hikers so we can loot their candy bars.

The trail was easy to follow until we got out of the canyon of Spotted Bear River and up onto the bench below the Chinese Wall, a 8000 ft high wall of limestone that is almost 20 miles long and runs right along the Continental Divide for much of the southern Bob Marshall Wilderness (Spectacular scenery!). The wall blocks all the afternoon sun from the terrain to the east and there was a lot of snow, but the routefinding was easy and we had a good time crossing the area.

The funniest occurance of the trail happened the day before we reached Benchmark Ranch, when all five of our group spread out and everyone was walking individually. I was second to last, with Vocal about 10 minutes behind me and Joel ahead of me and I came around a corner and heard a horrible squaking off to my left just before I caught sight of a hawk dive-bombing me with extended talons and I ducked just in time. The hawk was very upset with my presence and tried to attack me twice more, with my hiking poles defending my face from certain injury. After the third attack I just ran as fast as I could to get out of there. When I caught up to Liv and Joel I could see Joel telling Liv a story and gesturing and it was obvious the bird had attacked him too. It turned out that that hawk had tried to attack all four of the boys in our group and hadn't done anything to scare away Liv. Very scary, but at this point a real funny story, and one that Liv is very proud of avoiding.

We picked up our package and spent a few hours at Benchmark Ranch relaxing before starting the easy hike to Lincoln with no snow. We camped 22 miles from Rogers Pass the night before last with a group of trail crew volunteers (thanks guys!) who fed us chicken and stuffing (three Jims=good cooks) and were fun to talk to. We decided we might make a big day out of it and try to get to Lincoln a day earlier than planned and we made it last night, but we had to sit out over an hour of intense lightning and had to endure almost 5 hours of rain/hail/fog/mist and wind in order to get here.

We are now two days behind our initial schedule and feeling pretty good with our rest day today. We are thinking 3 days to Helena from here, so we should be there Sunday night or Monday mid-day, depending how ambitious we get. We are over 260 miles so far from the Canadian Border.

Thanks for those who have commented, I will either come back to the library to get some more computer time later this afternoon or reply to comments from Liv's Ipod Touch from the hotel. Hope everyone in Los Alamos is well with the fire and know I've been thinking about your safety.