Sunrise at Storm Lake Pass

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!