East Glacier to Summit Mtn Lodge

It took me until noon to get out of town. I wanted to get the maps from Glacier to Helena on my phone before I started. I tried downloading them last night but the WiFi at the hotel kept cutting out and I was using my roaming minutes. I had a gig of maps to download and I think that's too much for a roaming connection. So I sat around at the local bakery this morning for two hours while they downloaded.

The hike was fairly easy. It was rolling hills on nice trail, I was back in Glacier for this section. Eventually some thunderstorms rolled in to make the hike more interesting. I couldn't see the lightning but the thunder was amazing.

I kept hiking to Marias pass where I was told there was a place to get dinner. I was completely surprised by the restaurant. They were a steakhouse that had just opened up for the year 2 days ago and this was their second year of operation. Their best dish, which 3 of us got, was a pork loin with a huckleberry glaze. It was delecious. I was joined for dinner by Beads and Papichulo who had ridden the van up and Wanderer the first true southbounder. After dinner, and some wine, we decided to rent one of the cabins since the owner liked us and was giving us a discount.

My lake to South Fork Sun River Bridge

So today is the longest day of the year. Along with that comes a tradition known as hike naked day. Beads and Papichulo were very Gung-ho and got some pictures next to the Chinese wall. I stayed clothed hoping I could try the other tradition known as giant bonfire day. The hike was fantastic. The wall was huge and totally worth the hike out to it. 

We hiked slowly taking lots of breaks and just enjoying our last day in the Bob. The weather was perfect and we took lunch at the end of the wall. Surprisingly there were quite a few hikers out going the other direction. This was the first time I'd seen anyone, besides CDT hikers, on trail outside of Glacier. I guess the wall is pretty popular or it's the first day of summer and people want to get out. 

We hiked until 9 before camping at a beautiful bridge near a river. I guess with all the horse packers they need a bridge to keep the river banks decent. I wasn't able to build a bonfire so I had to quickly hike naked across the bridge to keep my trail karma up. 

Southbound day 6

Another day another 10 miles another dinner with a huge group if hikers. Unlike the last three days today was perfectly clear. The hike up the pass was easy and the views were spectacular.

I had heard from the Rangers that the trail in the Blackfeet Indian side of the park was a muddy nasty mess. It wasn't that bad it was actually better than most of the trails in new Mexico. Granted compared to the near perfect trails of Glacier it was bad but so is pretty much every trail I've ever hiked. They take really good care if the trails in glacier.

Once in town we tried to get a room at the same motel we stayed at last time but they raised their rates by 30 a night. They said we are now in prime season and wouldn't give us, repeat business a break. We went to the motel next door that hadn't raised their rates, who managed to sell all their rooms for the night while the first motel had empties. We had made arrangements with the other hikers to meet at the local Mexican restaurant for dinner. We were joined by the guys who had hiked in the pervious day and another car full of flip flopers. We took over the entire back porch of the restaurant. It was almost as crazy as pie town.

Southbound day 5

The hike up to the pass wasn't bad at all. The snow field we had to cross was the nice hard compact stuff that doesn't post hole. I hiked at least a mile and a half on it without postholing once. The final stretch up to the pass has two snow chutes we had to traverse, both went straight down into icy lakes. But the snow was good and the folks that had already crossed it had kicked good steps in. I didn't need my snow gear but was using it anyway since I'm carrying the heavy stuff.

The pass was cloud covered again which was a shame. I had hiked this pass last year and the view was fantastic. The rest of the hike was a very easy cruise into the campground.

The campground was surprisingly crowded for this time of year. We had a reserved spot set aside for hikers but the rest of the 80+ spots were mostly full. Our spot was very full. We ended up having 12 hikers show up all but one flipping from new Mexico. We picked up some locals and car campers and had over 20 people having a good time around our campfire. Normally I would be bothered by people staying up past midnight but with another 10 mile hike scheduled for tomorrow it didn't really matter.

Southbound day 4

If yesterday was a short hike today was even easier. We had a 10 mile hike today. I was up and hiking early after the easy day yesterday. The only challenging part of today was going up over triple divide pass. Unfortunately we were completely covered by the clouds. When I got to the pass I couldn't even see the third divide which was 50 yards away. It was also cold and the could was filled with ice crystals. Being in an ice fog was kinda neat but we hurried off the pass.

On my way up the pass I saw my first grizzly bear. A cute little guy about 250 pounds maybe 50 yards away munching on some green shrubs. I have it a hey bear and it looked up at me with a mouth full of green stuff and it jogged off over the ridge before I could get a picture or axle could see it. On the other side of the pass I saw a moose. It was at the bottom of the valley and was just a brown spec. I'm not sure if it was a moose because if the distance or not but it was the right size and vaguely the right shape so I'm calling it a moose. It was way to far for a picture though.

When I finished the 10 miles by noon I was seriously considering hiking on. It was only 15 more miles to two medicine which had a front side campground so I didn't need a permit. But we had met some hikers coming down the triple divide pass that said there was two miles of snow approaching the pass. Good easy snow but snow. I'm still not confident in the timing it takes to hike snow after Colorado and didn't want to get bogged down in it with 12 miles to hike so I stopped for the day. The fire we built while eating lunch and large group of hikers definitely helped make the decision.

Southbound day 2

I'll let the pictures talk for me today.

Southbound day 1

The 6 of us who stayed in east glacier last night got a ride in the morning with some PCT trail angel legends. Scout and Frodo shuttle hundreds of hikers to the start of the PCT. This year Scout is hiking and Frodo is section hiking the CDT. They were also flipping up from Colorado and had agreed to give us a ride to the border.

The a CDT has two official terminus in glacier. The main one is in Canada at Waterton. Unfortunately due to very bad snow and ice on passes to get out of there it is not hike-able. The alternative terminus is at Chief mountain at the Canadian border. Since I didn't have to cross into Canada I didn't need my passport which was nice.

The hike from the border was as spectacular as I remembered Glacier to be. The hike was fairly easy with the only difficult part being going over a pass. It was almost completely clear of snow which was nice. When we got to the top of the pass we just sat there for an hour waiting for everyone to catch up. It was extremely windy up there but the day was warm so it was just the right mix of cold and hot to be comfortable. Axel took off his gloves and set them down for a moment and they promptly blew off the mountain. He eventually recovered them but we had to wait an hour while he went and got them. There was a nice snow field by where we were waiting and we practiced self attesting, and sliding  with our ice axes.

We eventually got to our camp spot for the night which was your typical Glacier camp spot next to a crystal clear blue lake.

Southbound day 3

After yesterday's beautiful but tiring day we have 3 easy days to east glacier. We are restricted to backcountry campgrounds by the national park so we had to hike certain miles. Today's hike was 10 miles around St. Mary's lake then 5 more up to red eagle lake for the night.

The hiking was easy and beautiful, but the trail in need of maintenance. I guess they start with the more heavily traveled trails near the road before doing the ones 10 miles in. I was going slow taking lots of breaks since it was such a short day.

Steamboat to Canada

Getting from Steamboat to Glacier turned out to be harder than we expected. None of the car rental places wanted to let us do a one way rental to east glacier for a reasonable amount of money. We still had the option of having Austin drive us up but it was going to be a big pain for him since he couldn't get the same days off as his girlfriend like he had originally planned. Plus spending 28 hours driving was more than I was willing to ask him to do.

We eventually got in touch with some other hikers that were renting a van from Durango and diving up to Kalispell, the closest major town just west of Glacier, then getting a ride to east glacier with their trail angel friend. They were willing to add us to the trip which would make the van full with 12 people. The price was about the same as us renting a truck and diving but would be more comfortable.

The van ended up showing up a day late due to "mechanical" issues, but there was plenty of space. I took some dramamine so I wouldn't get car sick and was glad I did since I ended up in the back row.

We drove to Jackson Hole to pick up our 12th hiker and had dinner at the brewery. The food was food was good but the waiter never came to our table once. They had split the group in two and he waited on the other group while the manager took our drink and dinner orders. I guess the waiter thought the manager was going to take care of us all night cause he didn't come to our table. After dinner I eventually got tired of waiting and went up to the manager and told her about it. She comped our drinks and gave us the employee discount. That was nice but I would have preferred to have had something to drink with my meal. I doubt I'll go back.

After leaving Jackson we headed north for another hour before we decided to call it a day. The driver had been going since 5 am and was definitely tired. We got a suite at a super 8 motel which was surprisingly big enough to fit all 12 of us comfortably.

We set the alarm for 330 so we could make it to Kalispell by 11 am. After dropping 2 hikers off in Butte so the could northbound the trail. We only had 2 hours to drive 3 hours of road. Thankfully the rental shop let us turn it in at 2 pm when we called them.

When we got to Kalispell they grabbed the trail angels car and 5 hikers got dropped off at the park and made backcountry reservations. The rest of us hung out at the airport until the trail angel could take us up to east glacier.

Big Agnes shout out

Big thanks to the folks over at Big Agnes. I went by there original store in steamboat with a barely functional tent, the seam tape was coming off after 3 years of heavy use and the zippers on both the fly and tent weren't zipping all the easy, and they helped me get them replaced. The tent, a fly creek 2 that I bought for the AT, had a great warranty and the peeling seam tape was cause for a replacement. They didn't have a new replacement in stock so they replaced the tent and fly with new slightly used items. That was fine by me since they don't leak and the zippers work.

Steamboat Springs

I am now stuck in steamboat for a week. It's a great place to be stuck. Austin is the grounds keeper for a historic summer camp and we are staying in one of the cabins here. The place is called the Perry - Mansfield school. It was founded in 1913 by "Two bear hunting lesbians teaching dance and theater." It is the oldest arts school in the country and all kinds of famous ppl come here. Regardless it's an amazingly beautiful property. It's only 2 miles from town but still wild enough for bears, elk, moose and all kinds of wild things to wander around. Unfortunately the bears have become a problem and they have traps setup to catch them. They have been breaking into the kitchen and cabins so here so need to be removed. They caught one the second night I was here but it was gone by the time I got back from town. It was a problem bear but there is another one which is actually doing the breaking into buildings so they are still trying to trap it. I hope they catch it soon cause the kids are showing up next week.

This is a busy week of kayaking, bike racing, art shows, and a marathon going on in town. It's a great town but not what I'd call a hiker town. Most of the locals don't know there is the CDT and two major bike routes that pass through here.

I didn't get to experience most of the activities since I managed to chip a tooth. It was my bottom right wisdom tooth. I didn't even realize it happened and just thought a piece of rock had gotten into my dorittos. I eventually noticed and made an emergency appointment with one of the local dentists. The first dentist decided that it would be best to just pull the stupid wisdom tooth rather repair it to only have it fall apart at a later date. The tooth never fully grew in and was slightly below gum line so was hard to floss and brush. The dentist tried to pull it but was unable. He had gone on a canoeing trip and sprained his middle finger so wasn't able to get a good grip on the tooth. The other dentists in the office were to busy so the sent me off to an oral surgeon who could squeeze me in. They were nice enough to give me a ride across town with my now broken tooth at least. After a 2 hour wait the new dentist was finally able to see me. They redid the anesthesia and gave me some laughing gas then pulled the tooth. It was a tough one with 4 roots so I'm glad the surgeon did it since the first dentist thought there was only 2. That pretty much ruined my zero days for steamboat. I couldn't eat town food since I needed to eat mush and I couldn't walk around much due to the pain and drugs.

So I've been hanging out at the cabin looking at the near perfect weather and wondering if continuing on the CDT is the right choice. The PCT is really easy this year and will cost about the same to get to as glacier. But I set out to do the CDT so I'm not going to give up until I've exhausted all possibilities for finishing it.

Mile 818 to steamboat springs

Memphis and I eventually got up at 1 am and the snow was crusty enough to hold us. We made good time for the first 2 miles while we were on the open snow. Then the trail went into a forest. The snow was slushy and unsupportive in the trees. I just said fuck it and hiked on but this crushed Memphis and he was done.

After 4.5 miles there was an alternate route that dropped us down a valley to below snow line. Unfortunately the way down was a mushy postholing mess with river crossings to make it more fun. It took us until 10 am to get below snow line. I had planned on getting Memphis down the mountain and on the right trail out then heading back up, but after that mess we came down I decided to bail with him.

We got some nice yogi style trail magic on the way out. There was a couple camping and we walked over to see if they had any maps that showed the road walk up to pagosa springs, my maps got blurry and vague at an important intersection.  They had a map and while we were discussing the route they invited us to breakfast of pancakes, eggs and bacon. It was great after that hard trip down. After breakfast they took us the 5 miles down to the nearest "town" to see if we could get a ride to pagosa or Chama. Unfortunately nobody in town was heading out so we started to hike the 25 mile road walk to the nearest pavement. After an hour a truck finally came down the road and have us a ride. When we got to the road we tried hitching to Chama but had no luck. I finally asked some local girls from the roadside restaurant if they'd give us a ride for 40. Since the restaurant was closed while the owners were attending a graduation they took us down.

It was now 4 pm and I was running on fumes. Memphis and I got a room in the y motel again then went to grab a dinner. On the way to the bbq joint we were going to eat at another hiker, axle, came out of the expensive restaurant and started chatting with us. We just said fuck it and went and grabbed burggers there.

It turns out axle and 2 other hikers were waiting for a trail angle from steamboat to come pick them up. The guy, Austin, had hiked last year and was helping people flip up to glacier to avoid snow. It seems Montana has a below normal snow year and was hike-able already. It didn't take long for me to see the wisdom of flipping and after dinner I grabbed my pack and joined them. 5.5 hours later I was up in steamboat, exhausted after getting 2 hours of sleep in the last 36 hours but happy to have escaped the snow.

Three lakes to mile 818

We got up early to take advantage of the early morning crusty snow and we were on trail by 6. I wish we had gotten up even earlier. The hiking was a breeze. The snow was so hard and crusty that even Memphis wasn't postholing.

We made really good time going well over 2 mph. We made it 8 miles by 10 and had hopes that we'd cover the daily goal of 15 miles easily. That didn't happen. Around 11 we hit a section of really soft snow. It was just Memphis and me again at this point and we were postholing like crazy. It took us until 1230 to cover about 3/4 a mile.

We found a dry spot and grabbed lunch while talking about what to do. We still had 4.5 miles to go to reach our goal, but that would mean spending the entire 8 hours of the day postholing to get there. I suggested we just setup camp here and wait for the snow to get crusty again. Yesterday after 6 the snow firmed up a bunch and we were able to hike much better. The was also a full moon so if we night hiked on that crusty snow we had this morning we'd make great time. Memphis agreed so we setup our tents and waited.

I was really happy with our choice when some thunderstorms rolled in around 4 and rained. It was a really cold rain. Postholing in that would have sucked. Unfortunately the rain kept the snow warm so it didn't harden. We ended up staying on that ridge the rest of the day testing the snow every two hours.

Chama to three lakes

After taking a zero in town I was ready to go. Chama was a nice little town with very friendly townsfolk. We had a lady who owned the ice cream shop offer to give us a ride for the 3 miles across town to the motel in the middle of the day. She took two trips and said watch my shop till I get back. Leaving it wide open while she ran the first group down.

We got a ride back up to the trail from Sanjay's parents. the first bit was pretty nice with a easy hike up to elevation. I quickly fell behind the group due to my cough acting up. After lunch we hit the snow and they left Memphis and me in the dust.

The hiking in the snow sucked. It was really frustrating took. I don't know what I'm doing wrong but I'm postholing so much more than everyone except Memphis. I watched two other hikers walk across a valley then up the hill postholing only 3 times. Memphis and I then tried the same thing and were postholing every 10 steps in the valley and every 5 up the hill. It has to be something with how we are stepping on the snow but I can't figure it out.

The hiking got worse as the day progressed. The snow got softer and we postholed even more. We kept hiking until 730, partly to catch up with the group but mostly cause there was no place to camp. We eventually made it to three lakes where everyone was camped and called it an exhausting 12 mile day. I was more tired today than after my marathon hike.