A brief pause for real life

Hi everyone, it is time for a long needed and, hopefully, long awaited update!

First let me apologize for 1) not blogging the last few town stops, and 2) Liv's bad jokes and inability to tell you where we are. I am sure you don't really care though, since she is consistently funnier than I am, or at least that is what I have been told by family and friends below the equator.

I am now in my parents' kitchen in Oregon drinking a beer and feeling very relaxed, yet slightly sad that I haven't hiked since Sunday, while Liv is no doubt out there torturing herself with a 27 mile day, a bunch of jerky (vegetarian? right!) and at least 3 snickers bars, since she doesn't get (need) to attend a good friend's wedding this weekend. That's the story and I'm sticking to it.

So last time I blogged was in Helena and I don't really remember the minutia since then (or it isn't that interesting), but we arrived in Anaconda on a Wednesday two weeks ago and I took two and a half days off to go to Bozeman to visit some old college pals of mine. Liv and the rest of our pirate gang (see previous post? I hope?) kept moving on, but they planned on taking a day off in Darby, so I was confident I could catch them. My time in Bozeman was nice and relaxing and then culminated in skiing "the great one" (see S. Keller's FB for photos) before rushing back to Anaconda to resume hiking. The skiing and the company was great, and it is amazing to have friends who are nice enough to drive me and my vehicle all over western Montana.

My first full day between Anaconda and Darby I hiked 34 miles over some of the most beautiful terrain to date in the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness. I saw two moose and one owl flying with a mouse in its talons near Storm Lake and then had a beautiful lunch at Goat Flats, a rarity on the CDT in that it was flattish grass and not swampy. In the afternoon I passed Flop and Irish and met up with Freebie, who I hiked with the rest of the way to Chief Joseph Pass.

Freebie and I were shooting for another 30 the next day, but I really wanted to do an alternate route int he morning that involved a bushwack over a talus field and we ended up on the divide way before the trail but we were moving pretty slow. It was totally worth it for the spectacular views in every direction: the sapphire range to the north and the big hole valley to the south with the Bitterroot, Beaverhead, and Pioneer mountains all in the distance. I have some great pictures, which I will hopefully try to get on the blog this week while I am home.

After hiking a lot of miles with no water (but still some swamp mud) and about a billion fallen trees over the trail we finally reached HWY 93 and starting hitching in to Darby (only took 95 minutes!) and met up with Liv and the rest of the Pirates a week ago Tuesday (26th? maybe) for a real good burger followed by a real good breakfast at Deb's and then we were back on the trail, or so it seemed to me.

The last section between Darby and Leadore was at least as beautiful, if not more so, than the Anaconda-Pintler section. The first day was 6 easy miles on a dirt road followed by 10 miles of very tough up and down on a trail that precisely followed the divide (including lack of switchbacks) and included some hot areas with no shade due to past forest fires before Big Hole Pass. The next morning we set out without Vocal due to some intestinal distress that he went through about 7 times between 2 AM and 7 AM (ugh!).

My most amazing animal sighting of my life happened about an hour and a half after leaving camp. The three of us were spread out over about 300 yards and I was leading down a steep ATV road with lots of rocks in the Sheep Creek drainage after crossing a low spot on the divide. Suddenly, I saw small dogs running out from under a log and down the trail away from me. Then I realized they weren't dogs, but six wolf puppies, each about two feet long from head to tail; three black, three tan-gray. The last one started towards me for about three steps, then saw his siblings racing down hill so he turned and ran. I stopped and took a few steps backwards up the hill (and was too stupid/slow to get my camera out, damn) and as Liv came around the corner into view behind me we heard the mother wolf start howling from up the hillside to the east. We all stopped where I had, Joel started recording the howling on his camera (video mode) and we were blessed (or scared by) almost 20 minutes of mama wolf howling to her babies and the puppies barking and howling back before the family was finally reunited (in our direction of travel, unfortunately). At times we could see mama running up on the hillside through the trees but never well enough to really make out her body.

For the next few days we walked from beautiful alpine lake and stream to beautiful alpine lake and stream and then we descended down to the headwaters fo the Big Hole River and camped on Jahnke Creek (another wonderful mosquito paradise). There I got lost and dropped my map shortly before we all camped. In the morning we all decided to hike separately as a fun game to see if Travis could get completely lost without a map (and some group tension), but I made it after going straight up to the divide and just walking along with a bunch of orange flagging that I believe will eventually be constructed into a beautiful segment of the CDT that nobody will walk because it will be longer than the current route. And I enjoyed it.

I ran into Liv after my mapless divide adventure and the two of us hiked together until we caught up to Joel at the next water source. We then all hiked (with E.T.) to Lemhi Pass, which, for you history buffs, was where L&C first crossed the continental divide after ascending the Missouri/Jefferson Rivers. It was really really amazing to camp at the "most distant fountain"; the spring furthest up the Missouri River system, which Lewis obtained water from over 200 years ago. And for the record, we got the speakers out and listened to the Allman Brothers greatest hits, which I am quite positive Merriweather Lewis would have appreciated hearing while viewing a spectacular rainbow and eating canned salmon with thai red curry paste. Or at least I did.

Waking up in such an historic place and walking in cool, partly cloudy weather up sage covered rolling hills with mountains in every direction was the icing on the previous day's cake. Sunday was a longish but relatively easy day to Bannock Pass with lots of long vistas and gentle terrain. We arrived at my car about 5:30 pm and we were happy to see that Scott, Jim, and Sarah

had left it at the correct Bannock Pass (there are two of them!) and had left a comfy and stylish "hello Kitty" steering wheel cover to boot. We drove down to Leadore, ID and quickly realized that a town of 90 people in Mormon country Idaho is beyond completely dead on a Sunday evening. E.T was with us and Hui was fruitlessly trying to hitch out of Leadore when we arrived, so the five of us went to Salmon, ID to get some food/beers and a hotel.

I spent the next two days shuttling hikers to and from Bannock Pass before driving to Oregon for Matt Templeton and Ashlea Swantons' wedding. At one point there were 15 hikers in town, which I am pretty sure is close to an all time CDT record; two NOBOs and 13 SOBOs. And two more SOBOs had left Monday morning. It was great to see everyone, hear some stories, talk gear, and really get a better sense of who we are out on the trail this year.

I will be getting back on the trail on Monday or Tuesday in Mack's Inn, ID with Joel and Liv and Vocal. Until then more beer (and weddings!).