Today was mostly one big climb up Burnt Mountain and then tons of descent.

When researching for this trip, I read about some CDT specific.. ahh, logistical concepts or “specials”. We had so far avoided then, but no longer.
The first was that our two data sources seriously not agreeing about how far things are apart in miles. According to our feet, neither was correct. Usually we’ve agreed with Ley (the map maker). Today he said it took us 5 hours to do 10 relatively easy miles. Based on my normal pace, that should take about 3 hours and 20 minutes. Anyways, it doesn’t really matter except that we only bring so much food. If this happens a couple more times we will end up hungry coming into town.

The second CDT “special” is that the trail is supposed to be hard to follow. Our only navigational issues have been snow related. Apart from that, the trail has been ridiculously well signed… until today. Once we entered the Mt Haggin Wilderness Area, it seems the State of Montana decided not to maintain or sign the CDT. We missed one turn, quickly figured it out, and have been on guard since. Still, according to CDT trail guides, you should be “misplaced” regularly, and I can safely say that we have barely known exactly where we were since lunch.

Finally, the CDT is incomplete, and that shows up as us having to walk a lot of roads sometimes. Today was 100% road (except when we were misplaced and bushwhacking). This is hard on the feet and the mind.

To top it off, as we were starting to look for camping spots, we ran into a bunch of barbwire fenced off private property. We ended up hiking an extra hour just to find a spot off the road a bit (probably still private property though).

Anyways, to end on a happier note, tomorrow we enter the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness. Judging by the views we had today, it will be spectacular. Also, we are going to sleep to the sounds of cows mating. I had no idea cows made any other noises than “moo”.

Daily Summary
Date: July 23, 2011
Day 29
Daily Distance: 27 miles
Trip Distance: 494.5 miles

We got up early and grinded out 4 more road miles to the start of the trail in Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness. It was a great relief to be back on soft ground. We climbed all morning, and I eventually stopped for lunch half way up to a pass. The views were great today all around us. I ran into quite a few weekend hikers and then out of nowhere by a lake, 4 thruhikers! E-Blanket, Trainwreck, A Bear and Money Shot, all hiking together. We ended up all swimming at a (freezing) lake and then heading up the next pass. From there we traversed a gorgeous basin and then up one more pass.

We had dinner there and then descended looking for a spot to camp. Our 4 newest friends snagged the first spots, and then we were stuck in deep undergrowth, which forced us to hike quite a bit further than intended. We ended up near a lake, with ferocious mosquitos for companionship, along with two more new CDT hikers – Irish and Flop.

I haven’t gotten much of an impression of anyone yet, they all started after us but caught up on the Anaconda Route. Somehow I felt vaguely competitive, like I have to hike faster to “beat” them. That passed pretty quickly though, everyone is really doing their own thing. The first group has already hiked New Mexico, then came to Glacier and hiked south. Flop is quitting in a few days. It’s all good.

Daily Summary
Date: July 24, 2011
Day 30
Daily Distance: 30.1 miles
Trip Distance: 524.6 miles

Slept in quite late, in spite of Irish and Flop getting up at 6am. Felt very, very lethargic on the first couple climbs of the day. Barely made it to lunch really. An hour and a half on top of Pintler Pass, sitting under a tree reading helped rejuvenate me.

Chance convinced me to do a scramble off the trail on the Divide that turned out to be a lot of fun. The adrenaline from doing some steep glissades and scree kept me going almost til dinner.

Overall, a real mental battle today to keep moving in spite of beautiful scenery. I had a swarm of bees, flies and mosquitos following me everywhere and it definitely got to me by the end of the day. Now in my tent I let in about 10 mosquitos I have to kill before I sleep 🙂

Daily Summary
Date: July 25, 2011
Day 31
Daily Distance: 29.1 miles
Trip Distance: 553.7 miles

I woke up this morning to what I thought was a bear, but turned out to be ET walking up on us. He doesn’t use a watch so he tends to get up with the sun and sleep when it gets dark. Also he has no bug netting at all, so the Mosquitos have been driving him nuts. I felt a lot less annoyed with them once I compared my experience with his. Yikes!

We had a slow morning but I was feeling pretty energetic regardless. We hiked on the divide all afternoon, leaving the AP Wilderness but it stayed quite nice. The trail was littered with blowdowns yesterday and today, but today we just shrugged and carried on. We had some nice views south to Idaho (I think) of the Bitterroot Mountains.

Towards the end of the day we realized we could probably make it out to the road but decided not to. Our resupply “town”, Sula, is very small, just a country store and that’s it. The store closes early too. We are really looking forward to showers and laundry (10 days since our last). Also real food, but I promised myself not to blog endlessly about the food I want to eat, so we’ll just leave it at that 🙂

Daily Summary
Date: July 26, 2011
Day 32
Daily Distance: 24.1 miles
Trip Distance: 577.8 miles

We woke up extra early due to being quite cold but also near town! We got down to the right road by 8am but there weren’t really any cars for a bit just a couple guys out on motorbikes exploring old battle sites around the pass. We got out a neon “Hiker to Town” sign Chance had made and the first car picked us up.

We got down to the store/restaurant by 9 and had a couple breakfasts then had some showers and laundry. After that it was lunch, dessert and beers before we headed back to the trail by 4pm. In there I also called some rangers to figure out where Hailey can come meet us with a rental car and found an almost perfect spot. Friday, she’ll be arriving and we will likely take two days off to hang out with her.

We also heard that last night it was about 1C out, which explains our chilliness. I’m thinking about getting my warmer sleeping bag for the rest of the trip, because so far every night has seemed rather cold.

Other interesting notes, either yesterday or today we hit our easternmost point on the trip. We also have started crossing back and forth between Montana and Idaho. We have about 44 miles to do between the next two days, so it should be a bit more leisurely than the last week.

Daily Summary
Date: July 27, 2011
Day 33
Daily Distance: 11.7 miles
Trip Distance: 589.5 miles

We thought today was going to be leisurely, hah! We climbed and descended 6000ish feet. Right at the end we saw some amazing scenery around us, but mostly the rest was a slog. We dropped down low into Idaho midday an then spent the afternoon and evening climbing back out.

In the end wow though! The trail was great, contouring along a steep hillside with really nice views back to Idaho.

In sadder news, we met Vocal (last seen in East Glacier) taking a day off beside the trail. He woke up last night vomiting and still wasn’t able to keep anything down by lunch. He was in a good spot though, beside a pass that gets a bit of traffic. Some ATVers even had stopped in to chat and were going to drop by tomorrow. He’ll be fine!

Daily Summary
Date: July 28, 2011
Day 34
Daily Distance: 22.5 miles
Trip Distance: 612 miles

Chance woke me up at 5:45am as he was trying to get up and beat the bugs out of camp. He somewhat succeeded, I totally failed but still was hiking before the sun was up. I got some great pictures as I entered a giant bowl and traversed all the way around it. The rest of the morning was a series of climbs but not too high. Because we started so early, I stopped for lunch at 10:30am, and actually threw up my tent to avoid the bugs (which didn’t turn out to be terrible, but I didn’t want to deal with them). We took a long lunch, knowing that Hailey wasn’t meeting us until later in the evening.

After lunch, we had one big climb up to 9400 feet that turned out to be mostly on snow up and then just steeply down (the worst combo because you can’t glissade!). We were threading between big mountains, well over 10,000 feet, so lots of good views all around. Once we made that last climb, it was a big long grind down on an old Forest Service road that was really poorly maintained. Eventually we went off the CDT for another few miles to a campground where we were to meet Hailey. We got there and settled down to wait, but she showed up really quickly – apparently she sped a little to get to us 🙂

We packed up fast and hit the road to get somewhere and eat! Hailey had brought us cokes and homemade cookies from my parents (mmm). We got to Dillon (a town of 3,000) and plan to use it for our homebase over the weekend. Seems pretty good as we are surrounded by restaurants and beside a grocery store.

Daily Summary
Date: July 29, 2011
Day 35
Daily Distance: 21.5 miles
Trip Distance: 633.5 miles

Zero day in Dillon! We actually got up really early and headed over to Leadore to catch the post office and pick up our boxes from there. We decided we won’t be resupplying there and will just carry extra food to Lima, MT. It turned out to be not too far, so we got there before the PO opened and grabbed some breakfast in Leadore. Beautiful drive over there, we passed where the CDT goes near Leadore. The rest of the day was a lot of food and a bit of tv/movies (don’t go see Cowboys vs Aliens).

Daily Summary
Date: July 30, 2011
Day 36
Daily Distance: 0 miles
Trip Distance: 633.5 miles

Had a very relaxing weekend with Hailey overall but it had to come to an end finally. We got up early to get to the PO when it opened and then hit the road. We were on trail by 10:30 after a prolonged struggle with one of my poles (wouldn’t expand) and a brief goodbye to Hailey.

We had a few miles of rough dirt road to get back to the CDT and then a “welcome back” 1000 foot climb. Coffee and a rich breakfast were sloshing round my stomach and we were both pretty roughed up by the climb. Fortunately, the rest of the day was a relatively level jaunt down dirt roads. There was a minor midafternoon thunder and lightning show with a bit of hail and rain thrown in too.

I’m looking forward to a good nights sleep, compared to an air conditioned hotel room, I sleep better in the woods!

Daily Summary
Date: Aug 1, 2011
Day 38
Daily Distance: 18 miles
Trip Distance: 651.5 miles