I was woken up today by the dulcet tones of Chance puking his guts out. He got food poisoning from something yesterday. Fortunately, I felt fine.

We only had 10 miles to go to town in East Glacier but it was slow going. Chance was a trooper though and made it up the big climb to Scenic Point. I was getting a bit frustrated with the pace even so. Eventually I let Chance go ahead and then went normal pace to catch up. We had our first views East out onto the plains which was neat, but otherwise it was mostly just a slog. Eventually we kicked out into town behind a giant lodge. We went straight for a hostel behind Serranos, a Mexican restaurant, where we had had dinner before we started with Hailey and her parents.

Chance was feeling better in the evening and finally ate something. We met 3 other CDT hikers: Joel, Hui, and Vocal. Considering we weren’t really expecting to meet anyone, we were very surprised! They were incredibly hung over, but still chatted with us quite a bit. Vocal is a ridiculous character, giant beard with pointed moustaches and just talks all the time!

Daily Summary
Date: July 3, 2011
Daily Distance: 10.5 miles
Trip Distance: 111 miles

Last night I barely slept due to mozzys buzzing around me in the hostel, and it was too hot to zip into my bag, so I mostly just got bit. Also there are tons of firecrackers going off as it was the night before the 4th of July.

We spent the morning doing errands, then split a pint of ice cream to prep for “slack packing” the hike. The plan was to leave most of our gear in the hostel, hitch to Marias Pass and then walk back. We spent 30 minutes trying to hitch until some State police came and told us to stop… Dispirited, we bought some beers and headed back to the hostel. During our first beer, we were complaining to an older guy staying there too that we were unable to get a ride, and he offered to take us!

We finished our beers and headed out. The trail was a bit hard to find the start of, but once we got rolling it was easy times. The bugs were horrendous though so we didn’t stop for 4 hours straight. We finally took a break and did the “get your jacket and bug net on as fast as possible” dance.

Not the most enjoyable walk overall, mostly just in a tunnel of trees. When we got back to the hostel more CDT hikers had arrived! Liv and Travis were there, and a guy named ET walked in right behind us. ET was super quiet so I didn’t get much of an impression, but the other two were entertaining. We drank our beers and listened to the 4th of July festivities.

Oh yeah, I called Amazon about my busted Kindle and they are sending me a replacement to Lincoln, MT, where I’ll be in a week and a half. Good times!

Daily Summary
Date: July 4, 2011
Day 10
Daily Distance: 14.8 miles
Trip Distance: 125.8 miles

Slept very well last night, but got up early to be at the post office when it opened. Sent 4 packages, including my snowshoes (woo I don’t have to carry them anymore!). Had breakfast at a cool little diner with the bar stools along the counter. We need more of those in Canada.

After that we packed up in a frenzy and headed out to hitch back out to Marias Pass again, except this time to head south! We have heard tons of bad things about The Bob, that the river crossings were really tough, the trail is super muddy, blah blah blah. Turns out we are lucky and it was super nice. The ground was dry, although it obviously gets ugly when its raining, it was sunny! We saw tons of wildflowers. The river crossings were numerous, but all very doable. I was not scared or in danger of dying at any point.

We crossed paths with two more CDT hikers today, Kevin and Piper. I think this makes it official that we have a herd of hikers :). We all ended up camped together right before a big stream crossing for the morning. Should be very cold…

Daily Summary
Date: July 5, 2011
Day 11
Daily Distance: 18.5 miles
Trip Distance: 144.3 miles

Today was a comedy of errors. Early on, we ran into unexpected snow, which made our morning slow and frustrating. It never got quite to the point where it was all snow, more like 20 feet of big snow drift, then the same of very wet trail. Climbing the side of each drift was tiring as they were from 4-8 feet high.

Later, a turn that was supposed to be on a river bank was actually under water, so we missed that. And of course, we shortcutted across what we thought was another river but turned out to be a channel in a lake, and the other side was an island! Still undaunted, we swam/waded off the island to the other side and rejoined the trail.

Finally, at lunch I managed to step on my trekking pole, snapping the lower section in half. This is particularly bad because I use a pole to hold up my tent, and of course I just love walking with them. Even worse, I figure I’m a week from being able to order a replacement.

Regardless of all that, the actual hiking on trail that we managed was fine. Doing 20 miles wasn’t too bad, and I’m going to have to get used to it!

Oh, here is a list of songs that I’ve been singing to myself ALL DAY:
-Memories from the musical Cats
-Some song from Little Mermaid
-various Christmas songs, particularly Baby It’s Cold Outside

Pretty impressive, no?

Daily Summary
Date: July 6, 2011
Day 12
Daily Distance: 20.5 miles
Trip Distance: 164.8 miles

A long day, so I will be brief. We had a very easy morning, had lunch on a sand bar by a stream. Afternoon saw us climbing into lots of snow, and then over Switchback Pass. We followed Kevin and Pipers footsteps most of the way, made our lives easier! We ended up camped with them tonight, at a ranger station.

Daily Summary
Date: July 7, 2011
Day 13
Daily Distance: 24.9 miles
Trip Distance: 189.7 miles

Wow what a day! We climbed 5200 feet today, and finally got to walk on the divide itself for miles. Up til now we had only crossed it at passes. It was quite a rollercoaster, but the views were so rewarding! We could see out through the mountains to the plains. Looking south, a lot more mountains, but looking a bit more rolling.

We also met Jim(?) a 71 year old wrangler for a CDT Alliance trail crew that was working nearby. He told us lots of stuff, including that a horsemen can usually make 20 miles a day indefinitely, but 30 would require a rest day afterwards. I thought it was neat that a good hiker could outdistance a horse.

Chance and I also came up with our #1 quality for a thruhiker. His was stubbornness and mine was optimism.

Town tomorrow, quite excited for a shower and laundry.

Daily Summary
Date: July 11, 2011
Day 17
Daily Distance: 20 miles
Trip Distance: 275.1 miles

Into Lincoln today, so we were up early and eager at 6am. Overnight there had been some thunderstorms but it cleared up nicely for us. The miles were pretty tough and we were short on water for the first 2000 feet of elevation.

Eventually we dropped down nice switchbacks to Rogers Pass, where we started to try and hitch. The first car stopped, but they were hikers headed up the trail we had just come down. After about 30 minutes a girl in a Subaru with a bike on top stopped and took us 18 miles to Lincoln. She was pretty neat, lives off grid in a log cabin, and does triathlons in her spare time. Took us well out of her way too.

In town we ran into Piper and Kevin immediately. We chatted for a bit then got down to town chores, laundry and phone calls and food being the keys. I had a lot of gear orders to make too. It was all sorted by happy hour, so we went to the bar and started drinking.

By the end of happy hour, our bill for 4 people was $28 and 3 of us were drunk. Kevin and Chance hung around by themselves for another 3 hours drinking, while Piper and I were doing other chores. I came back to them in a deserted bar, holding the bartender hostage to their drunken ramblings. We were still in bed by 10pm. Big partiers we are 🙂

We are planning to be in Helena by Saturday morning and then stick around there til Monday. Possibly see the Harry Potter movie there too!

Daily Summary
Date: July 12, 2011
Day 18
Daily Distance: 7.9 miles
Trip Distance: 283 miles