Making it to Pinedale filled in the northern hole in my completion of the CDT. Now I still had to fill in the southern hole that extended from Rawlings WY south to nearly the southern border of Colorado. After a very welcome visit with Vanessa , friends, and my brother Lou and his family in Boulder I found myself back in Rawlins WY.
Deer in front of Library in Rawlins, WY
Apparently Darn Tough socks are only good for about 1000 trail miles.
Time for new shoes while in town. Pair number 4 and pair number 5.
40 miles of paved road walking next. Sigh…. That’s. what I had to look forward to. The official CDT trail south was purported to be poorly marked and hard to follow, was 20 miles longer, with views that weren’t any better than the road walk, and without even an antelope to keep you company. So the road walk it was and whinging about it didn’t bring Colorado any closer.
Fortunately road walks are fast and I was done with it in a day and a half. I’ve never listened to so many podcasts. Course it didn’t feel so fast at the time as I was running out water and had to rely on muddy streams and a silty reservoir for water.
I was too afraid to push this cloudy mess through my water filter so used bleach instead. Mmmm.. delicious pool water 🙁
After the road walk, I was so happy to see trees again and the last 25 miles on forest roads and trails went pretty uneventfully. The hitch into Encampment WY went quickly. I’ve been getting much better at looking more like a harmless hiker and less like a serial killer.
Resupply consisted of a walk to the neighboring town of Riverside and the resupply was from a gas station. Glad I’ve been packing extra vitamins. The next day, a very nice woman soon picked me up and went 24 miles out of her way to drive me to the trailhead. Once again, I was amazed at how generous folks have been to me on this trail.
I was happy to be back on trail again since my goal that day was to finally cross the Colorado border.
Finally at the Colorado border.
Left foot Wyoming, right foot Colorado.
Mud sometimes sucks your shoes right off.
So many wildflowers on trail.
Sunset
The highlight over the next few days was the hike through the Mt Zirkel Wilderness. I have to admit that after 2100 miles on trail, I had stretches of wondering why the heck I was out here. Was I just working on checking a box off on my bucket list? Was this really worth it? These thoughts usually came during long road walks or days of hiking through swamps swarming with biting flies and mosquitoes. Climbing up Lost Ranger Mountain in the Mt Zirkel Wilderness reminded me of why I was here. Finally I was in the mountains again.
The descent down to Steamboat Springs consisted of meadows full of wildflowers and lake after lake. Suddenly there were lots of people who were clean, happy, with new gear, and smelling like strawberry infused shampoo. Civilization. This was a huge contrast to the previous days where maybe I was seeing 2-3 folks a day and they generally smelled, let’s call it earthy.
On the hitch into town I was picked up by Karen and Johann who invited me to stay in their home in Steamboat Springs. Wow!!!! What an incredible act of generosity inviting a complete stranger into their home. They lent me a bicycle to do chores around town, fed me a delicious dinner, and sent me on my way back on the trail bright and early. What incredible folks.
Johann and Karen
Directory in local Safeway showing where to find different food items. Why don’t we have this back home?
Description of what free range, cage free, and conventional eggs means in local Safeway.
Wildflowers everywhere.
Wildflower meadow outside Steamboat Sprints.
There is a saying that “The trail provides”. No, it’s actually kind and generous people that provide.
If all went well, in two days I would be in Pinedale and on the next day headed down to Denver to see Vanessa before she flew back home to Massachusetts. I had been really really missing her and it was driving me to go for big miles over the last few weeks just to have a day with her. First though, I had to get over Knapsack Col. This day would be nearly 30 miles with more than 6000′ of total climbing to over 12,000′ with the higher altitudes characterized by snow fields and rock scrambling. About half of the write-ups I could find said that it was way too sketchy and that they would never do this hike again. The other half said that it was stunning and beautiful and should not be missed….. so I listened to the later folks and off I went. It turned out Cube Rock Pass and Knapsack Col were exactly as they were described. You had to earn the right to immerse yourself in them but they both turned out to be some of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.
Bull moose at sunrise along the Green River
Flat Top Mountain
Green River
Cube Rock Pass was filled with refridgerator and house size boulders that you had to scramble over and under with no descernable path through much of them.
Knapsack Col had a similar rock scramble next to the glacier that extends underneath the couloir at the pass to a thousand feet below. Many of even the larger rocks had not settled and more than once I had large door size boulders start sliding underneath my feet which had me leaping sideways to keep from tumbling down after them. It was a harsh and stunning landscape. One person I met described it as a power place and it was all of that. On descending down to Titcomb Lakes 2000′ below the pass, there were a lot of folks camping. In fact the whole valley was filled with tents especially since much of it was accessible through either an easy mostly flat backpack from Elkhart Park. A lot of folks also simply rode horses with outfitters carrying their gear in. I camped above beautiful Island Lake surrounded by innumerable tents and packed out at first light.
Sandbag NoBo In descent of Knapsack Col
Snowfield on climb up Knapsack Col
Couloir at Knapsack Col
View of Twin Glacier on Knapsack Col
Snow field on Knapsack Col
A lot of tents around Titcomb Lakes
Dinner spot along Titcomb Lakes
The 13 mile hike to Elkhart Park (which included some delicious peanut butter cookie trail magic at the trailhead) was followed by a 15 mile roadwalk into Pinedale where I had originally flipped up from to go to Glacier. It felt a bit surreal walking back into Pinedale. This marked over 2000 miles on trail and closed out all of the CDT for me north of Rawlins WY. I would first be going back to Denver to see Vanessa and now it seems my brother Lou and his family, and then off to finish Colorado.
Sunset
View from campsite over Island Lake
Island Lake
Hike out on Seneca Lake Trail
Greeting party on hike to Pinedale
Yay!!!! Back in Pinedale.
T shirt in store window in Jackson for flight to Denver.
I have to admit that I was a little intimidated by the huge crowds of tourists in Yellowstone. Once you learned the rhythm of the place it wasn’t so bad though. Beyond the heart of the Geyser Basins and outside a couple miles of any trailhead, you really didn’t see hardly anyone. Even around the Old Faithful Village, if you wanted to go into the shops or get something to eat, you just timed going with the projected eruptions of Old Faithful and the shops and restaurants would be close to empty. After getting my permits though, retrieving my package from the Post Office, doing quick resupply, and visiting my neighbors Jonathan, Amy, and Julian for a couple hours, I made a beeline back into the backcountry. Seven miles later, I had a nice quiet campsite all to myself with no one else in sight.
It was a treat seeing my neighbors Jonathan, Julian, and Amy
Easy hiking through Yellowstone.
The Yellowstone that the CDT runs through is surprisingly free of any animals. Besides a few squirrels, chipmunks, and a few birds, I didn’t really see anything. There were, however, clouds of mosquitoes. The Geyser Basin is basically a big swamp filled with geothermally warmed soupy water. Perfect mosquito habitat. Where there weren’t mosquitoes, the gap was filled by biting flies which were worse. Mosquitoes would at least respond to a healthy coating of DEET. The flies only responded to a quick swat. The problem was that there seemed to be a bottomless supply of biting flies. The only defence seemed to be to keep moving. Often this was tricky as large stretches of the trail passed through mucky bogs that seemed to want to suck the shoes off your feet. On the positive side, I was starting to meet up with some trail family that I had last seen in New Mexico. I met up with Armstrong, Bobber, Mighty Mouse, and Montana. It was really great catching up and they gave me some great beta on a thermal stream before my next camp at Beaver Creek above Heart Lake. The thermal stream was a stream with water that was running at about 102F and right next to the trail. I probably spend an hour in there floating as the rapids worked over my shoulders and washed all my clothes (didn’t bother stripping).
Soaking in a thermal stream
Doing laundry on hot cycle.
At Beaver Creek Campsite, I met back up with the posse and in the morning said my final goodbyes. Meredith, Southie, and Chip’n were headed to the Teton Crest Trail and Wilder was bolting south to Lander and then back home to be with his girlfriend. We didn’t expect to see each other again.
More easy walking south of Yellowstone
The next few days were quiet and I spent most of the time by myself hardly seeing anyone except Toy Story on a few occasions. The most interesting place I visited was Two Ocean where a stream split in two with the left fork going to the Atlantic Ocean and the right fork winding its way to the Pacific.
Two Oceans campsite
Water to the left fork goes to the Atlantic Ocean and water to the right fork winds it’s way to the Pacific
One of these mornings, I had to do my daily constitutional. Now my typical pattern is that I find a section of non switchback trail that is easy to find again (in this case a forest service road) then go a couple hundred feet off trail behind some cover. In this case, I had to climb down and over two gullies and over a bunch of deadfall to find my private spot behind a pine tree. There I was, pants around my ankles, in the process of filling my little cat hole when I hear voices in the distance getting steadily louder. These are the first human voices that I’ve heard in almost a day. They voices just got louder and louder and they were whinging about how hard the trail was to follow. Somehow, in the middle of all that wilderness, this middle aged section hiker couple had gotten lost off the forest service road and found my poop spot in the middle of bloody nowhere. Seriously, what is the probability of this happening. They literally passed withing 5 feet on the other side of the tree I was squatting behind then turned around and looked right at me. I pointed to the forest service road that was clearly visible from that spot and told them that was the trail they were looking for. The dude seemed to want to have a conversation and kept turning around and opening and closing his mouth. I mean, Cheezits Lites man, can I have some privacy? They finally wandered off in the direction of the trail and I could finish my business. On the plus side, I was down to using only 4 squares of TP a day. Afterwards, I felt a little sorry for them. If they could get lost on a forest service road, their CDT was going to be long and frustrating.
How do you get lost off of this trail?
Now that’s a fancy pit toilet (Brook’s Lake)
My main objective during this time was to make it to Brooks Lake Lodge which is where I sent my next resupply box. The problem was, when I got there, my box was missing. My UPS tracking number said that it had been delivered but it was not there. Now, it turns out that there was a fire in the building housing the packages and that some of the packages were water damaged but the manager in charge was convinced that no packages were actually destroyed. In any event, whether destroyed or taken, the 4 days of food that I needed to get to Pinedale was not there and my schedule did not allow me to burn a day hitching into town to resupply. My only choice was to raid the hiker box. To augment what little food I had in my bag (there was a day and a half food left over as I was moving faster than planned) the hiker box had a pile of PowerBar Protein Bars, a partial box of very stale Cheezits, a bag of Goldfish of unknown age, and some ramen packets. Smooth just happened to come in while I was sorting through the food and I was able to barter fixing his leaky water filter for a Clif Bar and a Granola Bar, score!!!!!
Four days of snacks abandoned in hiker box
Over the next few days I discovered why someone had abandoned that big pile of PowerBar Protein Bars. Between overdosing on stale cheesy salty junk food and eating several of these abandoned protein bars each day, it was a bit of a digestive disaster. Lets just say that I was going through more than 4 sheets of TP a day and felt like my insides were about to explode at any second.
A lot of butterflies like poop
Weather moving in followed by hail
Boomers coming this way
Lazy sunrise in camp after lightning storm
While hiking over Gunsight Pass, I met Bartender and a couple of other hikers who told me about a hiker wedding that was going to happen later that day in the Green River Campground and that if you were Hiker Trash, you were invited. Woohooo! That was just where I was headed then. Not long before the turnoff, Chip’n had showed up. It turned out that they had blitzed the Teton Crest Trail and had gotten a ride back to the CDT from a Trail Angel. Meredith, and Southie were not too far behind him. A lot of other folks had also heard about this wedding and were coming in from all over. Pinestake, Blackfoot, and Cow Bell showed up who I had last seen in New Mexico as was Twig and Relentless. Wilder also somehow showed up so the posse was back together again. It was a crazy, joyous reunion without a protein bar in sight. The couple, Trail Wife and Copenhagen, were awesome and the ceremony touching. It was another bit of trail magic outside of the realm of normal life. At sunset I packed up and hiked into the night and into the Northern Wind River Range to make up time.
We were surprised to see so many of the posse already in Darby by the time we arrived. I had done a 35 miler the day before and was several miles past where the posse had camped. Chip’n had got up in the dark at 4:30A and started hiking well before anyone else was even stirring. Meredith was also up and out not long after Chip’n and had reached me at sunrise just as I was stepping out onto the trail. We reached Chief Joseph Pass by 11A with me having done nearly 15 miles and them nearly 20 miles and then got a hitch with nearly the first car that went by. It turns out that a few of them took a bushwhack shortcut through the woods to one of the roads and hitched from there skipping a nice long section of trail. Bloody Hell! I have to keep reminding myself that everyone has their own idea of what a thru hike is and that it’s not a race. In any event, it was nice seeing everyone in town. Besides, it was Meredith’s birthday and a time to celebrate.
With Meredith and Chip’n at the Idaho border
The next morning, I was feeling pretty shaggy so I got a quick haircut and then headed out of Darby solo. Once again, only a couple of cars went by before I was picked up. Although the first ride was only a few miles, the driver was fun to talk to and I got a second ride right away that took me right back to the trail head. Montana is the best place anywhere for hitchhiking.
Southie enjoying first and second breakfasts
On the second day out, I was privileged to see, from a distance, two bull elk fighting horn to horn while a herd of doe elk looked on. The rut was just starting. Normally they would have noticed me well before I noticed them.
Trail following the Continental Divide
The spring in Sacajawea Park believed to be the headwaters of the Missouri River
Herd of elk
It was during this time that I was able to contact my trail buddy Radioman from the Appalachian Trail and he said that he would like to get me some trail trail magic in 2 1/2 days when I got to Bannock Pass. Yikes, that was 80 miles away through the mountains! I’d have to get my hustle on again. Fortunately the last day was an easy descent and I was able to squeeze out 20 miles by 1P to be on time where Radioman had fresh fruit and beer waiting for me. It really was great seeing Radioman. It turns out he drove 5 hours one way across Idaho to meet me. Unbelievably generous of him. We stayed at a friend of Radioman’s in Salmon ID, and after a quick resupply, dinner, clean up, good night’s sleep, and a delicious breakfast, he dropped me off where he had picked me up only to be greeted by about half of the posse who were a day behind me and looking for a ride to Leadore, ID.
Radioman dropping me off and picking up the posse to go to Leadore, ID
The next section of the CDT to Lima MT saw the trees thin to grassland and sagebrush. The wary pronghorn antelope were starting to show up again. You would often hear the antelope barking at you before you saw them but sometimes you could sneak to within 50-100 yards of them before they noticed you. It was through this section that the CDT would often just disappear and you would just follow a valley or bowl or meadow or compass heading indicated on your topo map.
Trail out of Bannock Pass
Wildflowers on Elk Mountain
Lunch stop on the Continental Divide
Water was scarce and welcome along the ridge line
Doe Elk are usually pretty wary
On the last section before Lima MT, the CDT follows the treeless ridge line of the actual Continental Divide. It’s a strange feeling when you think that your left foot is in Montana and your right is in Idaho. Raindrops falling to your left will eventually find their way to the Atlantic while raindrops falling to your right will eventually make their way the Pacific. For some of this ridge-line I walked with Wilder until he bonked and dropped off to take the easy valley floor (he had been doing big miles to catch up to me), but much of it I walked alone. Like much of the CDT, it was difficult, and brutal, and beautiful. After a glowing sunset, I rolled into camp and pitched my tent not too far from Wilder so we could catch a ride into Lima Mt first thing in the morning.
Blue columbine
Blue columbine
Found…….. Ate.
Wilder on the Continental Divide
Following the Continental Divide
Wilder in tunnel going under the interstate highway
The next morning, after a 7 mile hike out, we were picked up on the side of the highway by Mike and his dog from the Mountain View Motel in Lima. During the day, other folks from the posse slowly trickled in until we had quite a group assembled. Toward the end of the day, Ninja (whom I had last seen at Chief Mountain in Glacier) and Snapper also showed up. Over the next few days we would take the Mack’s Inn Alternate which was the straightest path to Yellowstone and also would take us through Island Park ID for an easy resupply. The trail was fairly uneventful except for the clouds of biting flies and mosquitoes and occasionally getting lost. It was a nice change though to camp with the posse through much of this section.
You can rent these if you’d like a place to stay in Lima
Yes, he is doing what you think.
The posse back on trail
Trail gourmet involving cheese and some kind of crunched up chips.
A lot of little ponds and thus swarms of mosquitoes
On the day before going into Yellowstone, we had assembled a big group of hikers right before the park boundary so we could all make the 19 mile dash to the Backcountry Office in Yellowstone to get our campsite permits for the next couple of days as we traversed through the park. I left camp early as I also wanted to catch the Post Office before noon as I had a resupply package waiting for me there and also, my neighbors just happened to be in Yellowstone at the same time and the early start would allow a nice visit.
It’s hard to get excited about road walks. To get out of Anaconda and back on trail required another 20 to 25 miles of paved and forest road walking in hot weather so I have to admit to not being particularly excited about getting out of town. On the plus side, I did run across Woodchuck, Wow!, and Eagle Cow while walking through town. About 10 miles into the road walk, Brock and Morning Glory caught up to me while I was scrambling down an embankment for some water and their company made the time pass much more quickly. It tuns out that most of the rest of their posse had hitched past this 20-25 miles of road and were already up ahead. Storm Lake marked the end of the road section and the welcome resumption of trail. When we reached Storm Lake, the mosquitoes were hungry and swarming but it was still worth a quick swim in the icy cold lake (fed by snow melt). There are few things more welcome than a swim at the end of a long hot sweaty day.
Brock in Storm Lake
After dinner and getting tired of swatting mosquitoes, I decided to chase the sunset and make the 1000′ foot climb over Storm Lake Pass alone. As beautiful as lakes are, they are almost always accompanied by clouds of biting insects. The climb was an uneventful easy series of switchbacks with just the occasional patch of snow to cross.
View over Storm Lake
View up climb to Pass
Storm Lake Pass
Storm Lake Pass was a breathtaking entry into the Pintler Range. One moment you are looking over a snow fed lake and then you pop over the pass which opens up into a huge bowl dropping into a valley a thousand feet below you. Although I had missed the sunset, I was not going to miss the sunrise so I set up my tent right on the edge west side of the bowl facing the east.
The next few days in the Pintler Range were beautiful and stark and difficult with long stretches above treeline and huge elevation changes. The physical stress of the constant ups and downs, however, was mitigated by the beauty of each new landscape as you made up through another pass. One day, I went through five passes. It was glorious as each new world opened up before me.
Bowl near Storm Lake Pass
Goat Flats
Pintler Range, Montana
Pintler Range, Montana
Morning Glory in Pintler Range, Montana
While sitting in a small field of wildflowers near one pass and eating lunch, a hummingbird flew to within a couple inches of my right knee, looked right up at me, then quietly dipped her beak into a flower and flew off. These are things that almost seem like dreams and that you never forget and never experience in the “real” world. I’m more and more questioning these days which to call the “real” world. There is the way you wish the world was and then there is the way the world is. The more time you spend in the wilderness, the easier it is to get lost in the former.
Fred and Pauline
Rainbow over Rainbow Lake
Pintler Range, Montana
It was during this time, I was really happy to meet up with Fred and Pauline (sadly only briefly though) who were traveling northbound and soon after caught up with the posse and made it to the Idaho/Montana border where I caught a hitch into Darby Montana with Chip’n and Meredith. Yay!!! Town day 🙂
Caught up with the posse. There were a series of incredible lightning storms through the night.
Morning Glory catching a sunset.
Pintler Range, Montana
With Meredith and Chip’n at the Idaho/ Montana border
We actually got to sit inside the truck on this hitch!
