Had 4 coffees today, including a very tasty americano at Roasted, a place that sells art and espresso in Lincoln. The lady that runs it also has a very cute bull terrier (?). Sent 5 packages from the PO, which included getting rid of my ice axe, crampons, and rain jacket.

We eventually left town mid-afternoon in the bed of a pickup. As soon as we started hiking, rain started, but it was a steep climb so it was nice. We got up to the divide and walked a bit and then big thundershowers started. It was quite unnerving because we were exposed on top of a ridge with nowhere to go but up. So we climbed while thunder rumbled and rain came down in buckets…. Actually, the rain reminded me of home.

Chance eventually decided he was seeing too much lightning coming down near us, so we threw up his tarp under some trees for an hour while the worst of it went by.

The rain stopped as we were reaching the end of the day, so we quickly setup camp. Both our sleeping bags got a bit damp in spite of being in dry bags, so hopefully the night isn’t too cold.

Back to what I said first, perhaps sending my rain jacket off wasn’t my brightest idea. My windshirt and merino wool hoodie did a reasonable job of keeping me warm though, but once we camped I needed to be in my bag fast!

Daily Summary
Date: July 13, 2011
Day 19
Daily Distance: 12.1 miles
Trip Distance: 295.1 miles

Woke up to more rain but the thunder and lightning show was done… Got on my damp clothes and was out of camp like a rocket. A very chilly rocket. The rain finally stopped around lunch, so we had a semi-successful drying out session. Eventually we just had to move on, climbing on the divide some more. The divide around here is pretty subdued, but we still had to do a ton of little climbs all day.

Later in the day we ran into a guy who is going north on the CDT, started in Butte, then he is going east on the Pacific Northwest Trail, then south on the PCT to Bend, OR. Sounds like a very fun journey. After we met him we started a series of bigger climbs.

By dinner we were both done, but wanted to push on. It started raining again so we quickly packed up and got moving. After another hour the rain let up so we decided to camp. Of course, it started hailing as I put up my tarp.

Now I am snug in bed and we have 21 miles to Helena. There is tons of thunder and lightning around us but I think it will pass soon.

Daily Summary
Date: July 14, 2011
Day 20
Daily Distance: 24.5 miles
Trip Distance: 319.6 miles

Right after I went to bed last night, my tent got blown over by a large gust of wind, soaking a bunch of my stuff. Then I got soaked fixing the stakes to be more storm-worthy. I didn’t sleep very well after that. At 6am we were both up, so we headed out in the cold. Weather finally cleared up though, so the whole day was a lot more fun.

We hiked mostly on Forest Service roads, with a bit of trail near the end. We had our first (of likely maaaaany) encounters with cows. In this case, big black evil looking ones that didn’t want to get out of the way. I made up cow songs to sing to them while walking by, as it seems they get less spooked if they hear your voice. Otherwise they tend to get in a moo-y panic and run away.

At lunch we met Bob, an older gentleman who is bouncing around Montana, trying to stitch together all of the state’s CDT. He had a rather heavy looking pack, but was in good spirits. It sounded like we will cross pathes again later. He offered us his wife’s phone number in Helena, where we are staying tonight… Very generous.

On that topic, we got a hitch from a nice lady, an she dropped us at the door of a trail angel who I had found on the Internet. He offered us a place to stay and he isn’t even going to be here! He basically gave us a tour of his house then handed me the keys and headed out for a weekend hike.

His girlfriend just dropped by and said her family is making us dinner. Time to go!

Later: dinner was great, then the new Harry Potter movie, then off to bed.

Daily Summary
Date: July 15, 2011
Day 21
Daily Distance: 22.9 miles
Trip Distance: 342.5 miles

First off, I’ve finally been able to read all the comments on my posts. Thanks to everyone who has commented, I really appreciate it!

Got new shoes, socks, and a Kindle in the mail today. Then went and shopped for 10 days of food at Walmart. We also dropped Kevin and Piper off at the trail. All this due to Lauren, our personal trail angel in Helena. She also took us by the outfitter in town, and then for a swim at the local lake (it was very hot today). Overall, we would have been hard-pressed to get everything done without her. This town is very spread out! Definitely a car city.

Zero has been nice, tomorrow we should be out hiking at some point, not sure when.

I realized late in the day that I had another 11 days of food to buy, as this next stretch of trail is very grocery store deficient. I have 21 days of food surrounding me in Andrew’s apartment now. A little daunting to pull it all together for tomorrow!

Daily Summary
Date: July 16, 2011
Day 22
Daily Distance: 0 miles
Trip Distance: 342.5 miles

Packed up everything and got food ready for shipping (which Lauren will be doing for me tomorrow). We went to breakfast at Steve’s, a very busy Helena restaurant. Then we lazed around for awhile as Chance had more Internet stuff to do.

I ran into ET downtown, who was headed out of town sometime today too. He said there are a bunch of hikers a day behind him.

In the end we got our arms twisted into staying for family dinner (ribs) and then finally dragged ourselves away at 8:30pm. Andrew drove us to the trail and we hiked into dusk, quickly finding a quiet spot for the night.

Daily Summary
Date: July 17, 2011
Day 23
Daily Distance: 0.5 miles
Trip Distance: 343 miles

We thought we had gotten far away enough from the highway last night that civilization wouldn’t bother us… So wrong! There was a big antenna nearby and at 10pm its giant lighthouse turned on and started strobing us every 3 seconds. Normally these things just have a red light on top, but the engineers went a bit overboard here. Anyways, I slept fine once I figured out it wasn’t a prison break or Chance sending me SOSs on his headlamp.

I was woken up by the sun warming my feet, and unusually Chance wasn’t already up (he takes ~30 minutes longer than me to get moving most mornings). I called out to him… No answer. I looked over and he was fully. In the sun, but bandana over the eyes and ear plugs had let him sleep obliviously.

We eventually got rolling and had some easy miles on flat trails and forest service roads. In fact that was true all day. The day got hotter and hotter as it went along. Chance had checked the forecast, and it was 110F for Helena. Using my handy Fahrenheit to Celsius converter (in my head), I realized the three digit temps qualify as “too hot to measure”. We both did fine since we have all our desert gear from the PCT.

We ran into a couple Forest Service people out removing blowdowns from the trail. They had seen another CDT hiker, so probably ET is just ahead of us. They were surprised we weren’t sweating much, because they were drenched. My observation was that if you wear steel toed boots, jeans and a cotton tee, carry a chainsaw and a sledge, you’re gonna be hot! As an aside, I’m not sure there’s anything much cuter than a girl with a chainsaw over her shoulder (except my girlfriend of course… haha).

At lunch I finally got to try out my new Kindle. Not broken yet! Later, we had trouble finding a spot for dinner that wasn’t swarming with bugs… We failed. I actually ate a few because they would fly in with my spoon. Hopefully mosquito season passes soon. Overall we had a nice day, we’re camped right at the foot of Thunderbolt Mountain, which we go right over tomorrow. Coincidentally, the forecast for tomorrow is thundershowers.

Sweet dreams for me.

Daily Summary
Date: July 18, 2011
Day 24
Daily Distance: 25.7 miles
Trip Distance: 368.7 miles

Woke up to more sun and bugs, quickly out of camp. We circled Thunderbolt Mountain then headed west for awhile. Ran into ET in a meadow looking confused, but he came along with us until lunch. He pushed on when we stopped and we haven’t seen him since.

In the afternoon it was 90% jeep roads, and the other 10% was confusion. It seems like the FS put up shiny new CDT markers on some old unmaintained trails, and didn’t get around to actually clearing the trails yet. I turned down the first one but soon came back to the road. I walked the road a bit longer and then another set of markers showed up. I couldn’t resist these either, and eventually got down to the right spot. I had completely lost Chance at this point, but we ran into each other an hour later.

The final note of the day was that we reached a major trail intersection. The CDT splits into two routes, the Anaconda and the Butte route. Anaconda is a big road walk into town and then back out. It is direct and fast. The Butte route is newer, supposedly more trail, but 60 miles longer. We are doing the Butte route as both of us rather dislike walking on roads if we can help it. It may turn out we still do a lot but it’s worth a try I think.

We ended up doing the first 4 miles on our route after dinner. All road so far!

Daily Summary
Date: July 19, 2011
Day 25
Daily Distance: 24.7 miles
Trip Distance: 393.4 miles

First, woo a 30 mile day! We kinda weren’t on the right trail at the end and just bushwhacked to Delmoe Lake. Went for a very quick swim and am now hiding in my tent from mosquitos.

Now backing up – we road walked a bunch more in the am and then hit the I15 corridor for lunch. Chance hatched a scheme to have a pizza place deliver us a pizza and sodas to the I15 exit we were at. The second call was a success and pizza was enroute! ET was around too but he decided not to wait (crazy will power on that guy, I could not have resisted). Pizza arrived an hour later with a pretty surprised delivery guy. We took lots of pictures. Afterwards, like good hikers we exercised “Leave No Trace” and burned the box and carried the cans from pop away with us.

We finally got on to some decent trail in the afternoon and were propelled forwards by relentless mozzy attacks. That’s really why we managed a 30 mile day. Now it’s bed time!

Oh, one more thing! We saw a kid on a bike wearing full German camouflage with a gun on his hip. Quite odd I thought, but that could be the Canadian in me talking 🙂

Daily Summary
Date: July 20, 2011
Day 26
Daily Distance: 30 miles
Trip Distance: 423.4 miles

It was a cold morning lakeside today. We had a long road walk to start the day, but 2.5 miles from the end of it we noticed our destination was only a half mile away. There was the minor issue of some barbed wire fences and an Interstate to cross, but overall totally worth it. We arrived to our resupply location, Homestake Lodge a couple hours early and were warmly greeted by the owners, Wendy and Chris. The Lodge is mostly a winter spot for cross-country skiing, so it was quiet. They chatted with us a bit and offered us a beer. We really liked them :). We also got 6 days of food and I got new pants and a shirt.

Now, about my shirt.. An ode to my shirt? It used to be white, 3000 miles ago. It has protected me from desert sun and nasty bugs. I dunno, what struck me most was how bright the new shirt is. Also, clean. I guess I’m not too sentimental, but I somewhat wish there was a RailRiders hall of fame for the shirt to go to. (update: Ryley wrote to Rail Riders and they posted his love letter about his shirt on their blog)

Moving on, Chris gave us a shortcut back to the trail, that was a nice trek through his trails and then straight up a steep bank a thousand feet (with no trail). It was totally worth it. I figure that we hiked 17 miles today but we bypassed another 12 or so miles we had intended to walk (mostly on roads).

The rest of the day was on beautiful new trail climbing with great views to Butte. We also had glimpses of the Tobacco Root Mountains (wait for the pictures, very cool). We met an older guy named Janusz who was doing part of the CDT with his son. They were at Pipestone Pass with his wife, and when we walked up she gave us donuts and soda. Seemed like really nice people, I wish we had had more time to chat. They also told me some dirty Canadian jokes that I hadn’t heard before.

We had our first bug-free dinner in awhile and ended up in a nice spot to camp on a saddle. Planning an early day for tomorrow!

Daily Summary

Date: July 21, 2011

Day 27
Daily Distance: 17.5 miles

Trip Distance: 440.9 miles

As we were falling asleep last night a giant truck rolled by about a foot from my head. I guess that’s what we get for camping 2 feet from a jeep road.

We got up early regardless and hiked around the south end of Butte on trail until lunch. After lunch we hit roads, but we had a nice break when we ran into a couple from Scotland. They were 11 months into a bike trip from South America. They sounded like they were having a fabulous trip. They had done the “CDT” for bikes through the states and were planning on ending in Banff. We hiked across this lovely valley with an Interstate in the middle… So of course we ordered pizza again 🙂

While we waited for pizza ET showed up again. This time we convinced him to stay for a slice. He told us that the bikers had gotten knocked over by a car right after we talked to them! They were fine but it was a bit of a shock. They came riding up 15 minutes later, headed back to Butte to fix a rim that had been bent. They were still in high spirits so that was nice.

Eventually pizza showed up and we disappeared it in record time. After that, another 5 miles was easy to do 🙂

Daily Summary
Date: July 22, 2011
Day 28
Daily Distance: 26.6 miles
Trip Distance: 467.5 miles