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!).

Notes on "Liv-ing"

Finally I have sat myself down at a computer with the know-how to actually write something myself... Hopefully I am as full as wit as some of you are hoping...

These are my impressions so far...

- After just over a month on the trail my social skills may be forever ruined. I now expect my friends to freely discuss their bowel habits (frequency, form, etc) with one another. Spending time with exclusively boys is interesting to say the least and I have learned so many interesting things but mainly how much poo is talked about. At this point I feel I don't even know a trailmate if I'm not familiar with their bathroom/cathole routine. Ah, trail life...

- Mosquitoes- perhaps the world's most vile creatures. I have done my best to diminish the population of mosquitoes in Montana but I fear I am losing the battle- they suck (haha). Of all the wildlife we have seen they are unfortunately the most prevalent and make no secret of their presence. I will continue to fight the good fight against them but am worried they may win... Wish me good luck and high powered DEET. As a typically non-hostile or violent person I feel zero guilt when it comes to the massacre of mosquitoes- be gone you beasts!

- Food: Have you ever wondered if tabouli mixed with butter, dried red chili and tuna is good? If so I'm here to tell you that it is delicious! Same goes for bulgar wheat with dried green beans and mashed potato flakes. I am amazed by the food that is consumed by thru-hikers. It's great being complimented by cooks/waitstaff at restaurants in towns for the sheer volume of food that we are able to take down. If I weren't so proud I may actually be sheepish... Interested in sending food our way? See the address list for help on where to mail things...

- My feet have come a long way (pun intended). It seems like every morning that I step out of my tent they seem to groan a little as if they are saying "this again?!" Daily I have to tell them that the reality of the situation is that we are spending all summer walking so it's time to get with the program. They are beginning to comply- thank goodness. Joel's feet are trying to compete with mine for ugliest feet on the trail and any day now mine should pass along the crown- a title I won't be sad to lose. I have lost 3 toenails so far- grossing out several of my fellow hikers to my great pleasure. Two of them fell out in/around Darby. There was talk of me taking them into a small salon for a pedicure just to horrify the staff. "Excuse me, could you please paint a flower on this one and a CDT symbol on this one?" while holding out my hand with toenails. "No? How about using acrylic glue then to resecure them?" In the end it was better to leave them on the nightstand over night to further mortify our fellow pirate Vocal.

- The kindness of strangers has impressed me beyond words. From people willing to pull over to allow stinky hikers in for a ride to town to hotel rooms purchased by complete strangers just because someone thinks it's great what we're doing, I am so grateful. Just last night in Salmon, ID where I currently am, the owner of the hotel we're staying in delighted me by her extra kindness. She saw that I was sharing a hotel room with 4 smelly boys and let me use her personal bathroom, shampoo, conditioner (1st conditioner in over a month), gave me big, fluffy towels and said that it was important that I still feel like a girl- such kindness. I decided to not quote Vocal when he said "The CDT is for men- and Liv." I hadn't anticipated enjoying town stops so much but the people we are meeting are making them such unique experiences. Huge thanks to anyone who pulls through in assisting a thru-hiker.

In other news, Travis's feet smell- no surprise there but I thought I'd mention it... While I know this is brief there will be more- still so many miles to cover. The land has been amazing to see and I look forward to walking and walking and walking...

Liv

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

Photos

I still haven't figured out photos, hopefully in Helena or Butte I will have time to figure it out and get some pictures available for viewing, as I know that thte scenery is more interesting than my typing.

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.

Schedule and such

Also, we are now two days behind our schedule and planning an extra day to Benchmark Ranch, so we will be three days behind. If you would like to know where we are, plan accordingly (to send cookies!).

Next post will be from Lincoln, MT, as there are no computers at BMRanch. Have a good ten days without us!

Glacier National Park

Liv and I arrived in East Glacier today after six days in the national park. We started from the Chief Mountain trailhead, which is on the US side of the border about 200 yards from Canada. A potential Triple Crowner named Joel started with us and was with us for three and a half days. Overall I think we had a good time both physically and enjoyment-wise.

The trail from Chief Mountain descends to the Belly River and then goes up the river's drainage. The first day we hiked about 10 miles, starting mid-morning, and stopped for a rather long lunch and a nice chat at the Belly River ranger station, the only backcountry ranger station in the park. The ranger there was very friendly and I really want his job, though I doubt he will give it up anytime soon. The hiking was pretty flat and very beautiful, with mostly cloudy skies and mountains peaking out all around us. After lunch we stopped at Dawn Mist Falls for a little while and then reached our campsite at Elizabeth Lake in the early afternoon. The rest of the afternoon we lounged around and it rained for about an hour and a half. Then we made dinner and it started raining again, so we all turned in rather early and had a rainy, windy night (dry in our tents).

The next day we climbed a few thousand feet up to Red Gap Pass. There was a bit of snow in the trees on the climb, but once above treeline there was very little snow. The trail was easy to follow, though it was steep near the top and the wind was howling and gusting at what I would conservatively estimate at 50 mph. There were steps where my moving foot actually ended up behind where I had picked it up. We finally made it over the pass and out of the wind and had a descent through more snow and trees, but we weren't slowed down too much and we then had a really nice cruise on dry trail for a few miles to Poia Lake, where we had lunch. The rest of the day we climbed over Swiftcurrent ridge with only a little snow and then descended to Many Glacier Campground, where we took showers at the lodge. Joel knew some people that worked at the restaurant, so we got free beer and free pizza. A fourth thru-hiker, E.T., joined us late in our dinner. The evening was again very windy and I didn't get much sleep, but Liv slept through it all as always. The total for this day was 18 miles.

The third day we went up the valley of Cateract Creek and over Piegan Pass. It was to be a short, 13 mile day to the Going-to-the-sun Road, but the pass was not easy. About 5 miles of the approach were completely snow bound and we could not find the switchbacks up the pass, so we just went straight up a snow slope for about 1200 ft, which I thought was the easiest option but Liv did not enjoy do to the fear of falling and sliding all the way back down. At the top of the snow slope we again found the trail and ran into E.T., who we had somehow passed and who had found a better way up through the trees than our open slope. The four of us climbed the rest of the pass together and had a few scary snow crossings, including one that Liv and I scrambled around for fear of falling on the steep, hard-packed snow. After we finally reached the top of the pass we all decided that the best way down was straight down the valley and out to a bend in the GTTS Road, as the rest of the trail was completely covered in snow and would have involved a lot of side-hilling in the snow with nobody's tracks to follow. The descent involved a lot of sliding on our butts (or feet) and then a rather easy walk almost completely on snow down the middle of the creek valley to the road. We reached the road about 2 and had a late hot lunch (left over dinner from the free pizza night) and then roadwalked to where the cars were allowed to drive to before hitching to Rising Sun Campground (minus E.T., who walked on the trail further).

We camped at Rising Sun even though it was not on the trail because when we obtained our permit the ranger said that a section of the trail was closed and that we would have to roadwalk around through St. Mary's and the Rising Sun CG was halfway through the roadwalk. The trail turned out to be open when we got to the road, but we went to Rising Sun anyway because our permit was for that campsite. That night, the three of us decided not to go over Triple Divide pass the next day as planned because it would have been a very big day with a pass at the end of the day and we had heard reports that the pass was scarier than Piegan Pass, which had scared us.

So the fourth day we roadwalked to St. Mary's in the morning. At St. Mary's, Joel left us to hitch-hike into E. Glacier due to a knee injury. Liv and I continued roadwalking south on hwy 89 and 14 miles and then walked the Cut Bank road to Cut Bank Creek CG (24 miles total roadwalk). The road was fast walking, but the cars were annoying and the shoulder was skinny. We also both have worse toe blisters after the roadwalk and we had very sore feet by the end.

The fifth day we got back on the trail (with 2.5 extra miles from Cut Bank CG to the trail versus our planned itinerary) and then went over Pitamaken pass. I think this was our best day in the park. We had nice weather and a good trail to start with and then when we hit snow, Liv had some excellent navigation and we made good time on the first snow in the valley to Morning Star Lake and then on the climb up to Pitimaken Lake. The last 1000 feet of climbing to the pass was partly snow and partly exposed talus with the trail switchbacks pretty easy to follow. I hiked up a little higher to CutBank pass to get some photos and then met Liv just below Pitimaken for the final snow crossing, which turned out to be nice soft snow with good footprints from previous hikers. The top of the pass was beautiful and not windy, which made us linger a little longer than the other passes. The descent was unfortunately very scary, as we lost the trail and I mistakenly led us down a slope I thought the switchbacks were on but we ended up having to down-climb through a short cliff band and then we had to kickstep down a steep snow slope for about 50 yards before finding a good run out to safely slide the rest of the way down. The 1.5 mile descent ended up taking well over an hour and being the scariest part of the day, especially because dark clouds moved in while we were trying to safely descend. Once we made it down thoug the rest of the afternoon was easy hiking first on snow then on dry trail down another river valley and over a small spur ridge to Two Medicine CG, where the hiker/biker sites were situated at the far end of the campground from the trail, both in the evening and in the morning. In all we hiked 17 miles on the fifth day.

Today we hiked 10.5 miles over Scenic Point and down to the town of East Glacier. The morning's climb to Scenic Point was long, but well graded, and the hike to town was easy, mostly dry and snow-free, and had great wildflowers and views of the plains. We are now in town and have beds at the hostel for tonight, we've both showered and laundered clothes, and we found Joel, who is debating what to do about his knee. We are hoping he enters the Bob (Marshal Wilderness) with us tomorrow.

Overall we had a great time in this section and Glacier National Park is definitely a beautiful place. We saw a moose the first day, two black bears the second, one black bear the third, a bald eagle, elk, deer, marmots, pikas, chipmunks, lots of scat from many animals, and a great ranger talk on the illusive wolverine, though we didn't see any wolverines. We also saw a lot of wildflowers, many of which I don't know the names of. We haven't seen any grizzlies yet, and I think we both are ok with that. We got along pretty well and besides the rain the first night and the constant wind the first three days, our weather hasn't been too bad. The last three days have been warm and sunny and the weather is supposed to continue. We are looking forward to entering the Bob, where the elevations are a little lower and hopefully more snow-free, but we are worried about a number of big creek crossings that will not have bridges like in the national park.

Blister update!: Liv's heals are healing (one of her favorite jokes) and have not regressed at all. We have discovered 2nd skin, which she has been using every day and it seems to be working, though it does come off sometimes in the afternoon when feet are wet from snow melt/streams. She has bet me a fig newton that they will be completely healed in 2 more days, and even though I am looking forward to eating that fig newton I do think that her heals will be like new within another week. My little toes are about the same as when we finished our shakedown hike, still blistered but not awful. Liv's toes are also blistered, but she hasn't lost any toe nails yet! The balls of my feet are a little blisted from the road walk but they haven't gotten any worse and I expect them to be better tomorrow. Other than that, no injuries to report!