June 11 Day 48 - June 16 Day 53 - Glacier National Park

(William, Scout, HoJo, Guy, Kramers, Axle, Me, Grim)

Guy, Grim, and I shared a room at the motel in Glacier. We had an early start to get to the Chief Mountain trail head on the Canadian Border. 6:30am, out the door and into Scout and Frodo's RV. With permission to cross the border, we took some pictures of Canada. 

(Sunlight on the monument at Chief Mountain)

Generally the CDT would be at Waterton, which is much more scenic and has the monument, but it was closed due to snow conditions, so we had settled on Chief Mountain.

After more pictures at the trail head we finally got walking, feet to trail. It was a bit surreal. Our purpose as hikers is to walk. It's what we do and what we do best. Not walking means so much to us. It means not fulfilling our purpose. It's like losing a limb in a way, or finding yourself in a place where you don't speak the language. You feel lost and disconnected. Walking the trail brings you right back to where you're supposed to be. We're fluent here.

(Welcome to Glacier and using my Duluth Lumbar Pack as a front pack- experiment)

I should really introduce this whole section, really most of Montana, with a bit of a forewarning. Montana was tough for me. It was tough for everyone. I don't know if it's because the state seems endless, being almost 1,000 miles of trail, or if it was the flip and the stress, or if it was the inordinate amount of being stuck in the trees and dense greenery. Whatever it was, many of us went through what I like to call "Hiker Fatigue." Every amazing view is "just another amazing view." Every step became tedious and motivation dropped off. Big miles didn't seem like an option let alone a necessity. The reason for being out on trail at all seemed to allude everyone. There was a distinct minority who did not feel this way. The rest of us did, and we did not talk about it. Until later, but I'll come back to it then, when we reach Anaconda.

For now, let's stick to Glacier. It is a beautiful place. Pictures can say more about my experience there than words can in this case.

It felt like a constant uphill with these huge passes to climb for hours. The snow was there and we did use our ice axes to carve steps to cross snow fields. We even played around with glissading, where you slide on your butt down the mountainside, and we practiced self-arrest, stopping yourself from sliding down a mountainside using your ice ax.

The blue of the lakes and of the ice was that deep glacial blue. The water tasted like purity and looked too good to filter, so I didn't. No Giardia, yay! The mountains were epic and grand. Proud even, if you can call mountains proud. They seemed to puff their chests. We could see for miles and note with excitement at how far we had come.

(Guy and Grim)

(Scout hiding from the wind)

At the top of the passes the wind was so strong it could knock you over, or at least me. I'm not the most physically substantial of the group, so I get a bit more tossed around by the elements. Within minutes the cold air and the wind would cool your sweat soaked body and force you into more warm layers if you wanted to spend any amount of time enjoying the view. Or you could get hypothermia, your choice. The wind was so strong in fact that Axle took is gloves off for a moment and they went flying down the side of the mountain! He spent the better part of an hour searching for them successfully!

(HoJo, Axle, Kramer's, me, Guy, Buck 30)

(Scout, Frodo, Grim)

(Grim, me, Guy)

William earned his trail name Sandman by sleeping in as everyone left camp one morning, forgetting to wake him. He had no maps of the area and didn't even know what the next campsite was! He somehow managed to connect with HoJo and found us all by the end of the day. Guy and I spent a lot of time hiking with Scout and Frodo, enjoying their stories and songs.

(Just taking a break!)

(That way!)
Our mileages were 20, 23, 15, 10, 10. Adorable is a good adjective to describe our plan. We all enjoyed early campfires, late starts, and meals together. It was a welcome break and a good reset as we got used to trail again.

(Just being awesome)

(We came from somewhere over there!)

(OmNomNom)

(Serious wand shop in East Glacier)

We ended in East Glacier where we got a room at Brownie's Hostel and had a HUGE hiker dinner at Serrano's Mexican Restaurant. There may have been 20 hikers there. Many more people had decided to flip after we led the charge and it seemed like they were all here in East Glacier!

June 2 Day 39 - June 10 Day 47 - The Waiting Place - Durango

(Snow gear! Merrill shoes, micro spikes, ice ax!!)

And now we take a break from trail. This is the inevitable extended week of zeros to wait out the snow. This is something we were all warned about before heading onto trail. You might have to wait a week or two at different points due to weather. Plan to take 30 zero days because you just never know. This was the start of that for us. We had made our decision. We were going to Durango to wait out the weather and decide what to do.

(Deep breaths)

Twinkle, Ducky, and Badger were meeting Big Foot in Chama and they were all going to drive up to Durango and do some fun side trips as they waited out the snow. They were kind enough to give me and Guy on a Buffalo a ride there, where we met Guy's friend, Claire. She picked us up from Serious Texas BBQ (I dunno how serious it was really) and we said heart-felt goodbyes to our new friends. It was great seeing Big Foot again since I started with him in the shuttle and he gave my pack its first shake down, getting rid of the first round of extra weight back in Lordsburg.

(Excuse my finger. This is Claire and these are cows)

We spent the next week on an Organic Dairy farm with Claire and her roommate Phil. Claire is the herd manager, dealing with the cows and organizing their schedules.

Phil is the Cheese Apprentice, learning all about cheese making and helping the farm cultivate some new varieties. It was really cool to say the least. 

(Phil making cheese)

We ate a lot of great food there! Wow!  Guy and I, mostly me, made dinner every night for Phil and Claire as a big thank you for hosting us and letting us use the car!

Claire's car is a stick shift, something I had dabbled with in Chicago, but had never mastered. She somehow felt confident enough with my driving skills to hand me the keys for the week. After a very short refresher course, I was on my own. Three peddles and many stalls later I felt pretty comfortable getting around Durango in the car! This was not a skill I had expected to pick up while on trail! So funny!

Guy and I spent our days exploring Durango, rock climbing at the gym, rafting on the Animas River, doing yoga in the grass, eating a lot of food, and researching the conditions in Colorado. We spent our evenings cooking and playing board games with Phil, Claire and others on the farm. It was the perfect little vacation from trail life. We were still in touch with Bearclaw and Grim to see what tey were planning to do.

Bearclaw made a decision to rent a 12 person van and drive it one way up to Canada with any hikers who wanted to flip north. She asked if we wanted to. Time to decide. At this point I was so over this decision that I really didn't care. It didn't mater to me in the end. All I wanted was to hike this trail and enjoy myself. The uptight social rules about hiking all the way through one way (no flips) was illogical to me. People out here create these standards for thru-hiking that are unnecessary. I just couldn't wrap my head around why you were less of a hiker if you flipped, or if you skipped 3 miles of paved highway walking, or didn't finish the entire thing in one year due to weather. And so I just want ANY decision to be made about what to do.

(Claire, Guy, and Phil)

We finally settled on flipping up with Bearclaw. We would drive up to Glacier National Park, to the Canadian Border and become South Bounders. Flip Floppers. Phew! The snow was very low there, so Glacier would be safe and beautiful. The San Juans would be much safer in September when we would arrive back in Colorado. It seems like a no brainer now, looking back on it.

(Guy, Claire, Phil, and me)

June 8th the van arrives and we say tearful goodbyes to our lovely hosts, Claire and Phil. We load ourselves into the van and head on our way. It takes us 3 days and a fair few stops to grab other hikers who had found their way to various cities to wait out the snow. 12 hikers and 12 packs as big as hikers somehow managed to fit into this van. It was cramped. We were all very grateful to get out in Glacier and grab our permits. National Parks require permits for camping in designated camp sites. It's rather annoying for thru-hikers who are used to camping wherever they end up at the end of the day. We did it though.

(Taking a break from the drive to admire the mountains. Haircut courtesy of Bearclaw, Dirtmonger, and Handy Andy in Lake City. Lumbar pack courtesy of Duluth Pack!)

Guy was keen on spending time with Scout and Frodo, a lovely couple he met through the Pacific Crest Trail, and they had taken Grim and done the Great Divide Basin to get it out of the way while we had been bumming around Durango. The basin, you see, is where the mountains split and go around 120 miles of dry, tick infested, desert. It's best to just get it over with. So, Guy and I were on the same camp schedule as Scout, Frodo, and Grim, while all the others who had joined us, Papi Chulo, Beads, Kramers, William, Axle, HoJo, Bearclaw, and Dirt Monger, were on an different set of camping schedules.

(Hiker Trash waiting for permitting to be sorted)

(Me, my dreams, and my Duluth lumbar pack)

And so we were finally lookin at getting back on trail tomorrow. After all of this time and stress. Glacier, here we come!

June 1 Day 38 Perfect Sunrises into Chama

Perfect sunrises may only come once in a lifetime. You may be privileged enough to experience more than one perfect sunrise in your life. If so, give everyone around you the biggest bear hug you can muster because perfect sunrises fill you up with love to the point that it overflows and needs to be directed. Give it to those who have fewer perfect sunrises in their lives. I had a perfect sunrise today.

Twinkle, Ducky, and Badger left before me and Guy this morning, as we journaled and let the sun warm us slowly. We had cowboy camped last night, not afraid of the thunderstorms nearby. That's a lie. I was worried about getting rained on. BUT, we didn't get rained on and instead enjoyed a perfect night of cowboy camping, no shelter above us, just our sleeping bags and all of my clothes on. 11,000 ft is cold.

It was 18 miles to the road we were to hitch on. 18 miles, no problem. Not so much. It was some of the hardest miles I've done so far. Miles and miles of potholing through deep snow. And while Guy seemed to float above the snow, I consistently fell through it. I somehow managed to avoid impaling myself with the branches of trees hidden under the snow, though I did have a few close calls.

(Trying to smile while post holing)

The clouds were building above us and we could even hear distant thunder. We both prayed silently that we wouldn't be caught postholing under a storm. Our weather luck had held out pretty well so far, but it wasn't going to today! The storm inevitably moved over us and we rocked out to Spice Girls as we tried to make our slow way up toward Cumbress Pass and into Colorado.

Just as we passed the border of New Mexico the storm clouds cleared and the sun emerged! Seriously? It really does feel like I'm in a movie sometimes. It really did clear up just as we made it to the border. We took pictures, drank a mini shot of whiskey, Guy's first, and made our way out of the snow toward the highway.

(The state border!)

(The view before dipping down to Cumbress Pass)

(It's always Christmas here)

The first truck that came our way stopped and gave us a ride back to New Mexico into Chama, where we booked it to the nearest pizza place and gorged on warm food! 

(The hitch into Chama)

(We ate it all)

Twinkle and his friends had taken an alternate that pretty much completely avoided the snow, so they got in hours before us!  UGH!  To know that is had been avoidable kinda kills you inside.

(Guy, Twinkle, Guthrey, Badger - far right- and Ducky -near right)

We met them at the hostel in town and bought some drinks and food for the evening.  What an exhaustingly glorious day! Now it was time to decide what to do about Colorado.

May 31 Day 37 Bears, People, Perfect Sunsets

Another waddling porcupine graced us with its presence this morning. We watched it post-hole in the snow with its short stubby legs.  Shortly after that, as we approached an open field, we saw a mom black bear and her 3 cubs! Wow! So cool! Check "bear" off the list of must-see animals on the CDT.

(Hiding under the tarp in the rain)

The day progressed less impressively until the rains started. We were in no rush, so we set up the tarp and ate lunch shielded from the weather.  Noshing on hummus contentedly we hear the sounds of a large animal moving near by!  More animals today!?  We sick our heads out of the tarp and see 3 thru-hikers, Twinkles, Ducky, and Badger! What a treat! It has been a while since we've seen anyone else out here, so their company was warmly welcomed.  They chatted with us for a while before heading on.  They had not seen Grim and Bearclaw either, which was very confusing indeed.  Where were they?

We packed up our tarp and began to hike on through these beautiful valleys full of marsh.  The beauty and the wet feet compliment each other well. A few miles in we see some south bounders heading our way. They must be section hikers. What a day full of people!  As they got closer we noticed they had a decidedly aggressive pace and what can only be described as an annoyed pep to their step.  Oh, it was Twinkles and his friends. Oh, that means we were all going the wrong way. I check my Guthook App to see where we are, and sure enough, we are off trail. Somehow we had missed a turn. This is normal on the CDT. Getting off trail is expected. You are told about it before starting. You cannot get frustrated by it. Factor it into your mileage because it is inevitable.

After a good laugh about the whole thing, we all got going int he right direction and headed up a large hill or a small mountain. The view was spectacular! We could see a herd of elk along with a large coyote or a wolf!  Wow! This amazing view was accentuated by the music from Spice Girls, which everyone sang along to except Guy, it was a bit before his time.

Pit toilets are a favorite find for thru-hikers due to the built in privacy and likely presence of toilet paper. The pit toilet we discovered at a campground near some lakes was anything but exciting unfortunately. A poorly maintained (cleaned) pit toilet is much more uncomfortable than digging a hole in rocky ground and relieving yourself in a hoard of mosquitoes. It is what it is. On we hiked. Goodbye pit toilet.

Our goal was an 11,000ft summit to camp. We wanted to have an awesome sunset view and a great sunrise. It was totally worth the push through postholing and carrying extra water to get there. We watched epic thunderstorms from one side and a perfect sunset from the other. We forget that the world can provide us with such beauty when we have our blinders on all the time. You need to get up high to see this far.

May 30 Day 36 The River Crossing

Leftover hot chocolate is amazing the next morning. In case you didn't know that. And that is how we started our morning. With reheated hot chocolate!  Oh and then we decided to add freeze dried strawberries and granola! OmNOMNOMNOM!  SO good! It's about the small things out here.  Anything to make a meal more memorable or different than the last 20 meals you've had.

(Just another day filtering water)

It was a pretty chill day overall, as they have been of late.  A mix of dirt roads and trail with many trees and occasional fields of tall grass. We knew we had our "epic" river crossing today so we were mentally preparing ourselves for it. Barclay had been talking it up for a while, showing us pictured from Facebook friends ahead of us on the trail who claimed it to be chest height.  The bridge, we knew through the same sources, had been wiped out, washed down stream, unusable. This is also the day we expected Grim and Bearclaw to catch up to us.  If we had done the math correctly based on their speed and daily mileage, they should be here by now.

The river crossing came and went.  It was as memorable as that, fortunately and unfortunately.  We were kinda prepared for a big adventure.  The water was about thigh high, refreshingly brisk, and the current wasn't that fast.  That was that.

Honestly, I was rather tired of the fear-mongering out here.  This was my last straw.  I was done with it. Generally speaking, the conditions are never as bad as people make them out to be.  For what reason, I am not sure, but I have a feeling it has to do with the desire to tell stories.  Not in a bad way, but in a human way.  Trail brings out the most human traits within us, and story-telling is such a part of human culture and communication. People want to have a story to tell. People want their lives to be interesting. People are out here to have adventures and to add spice to their lives.  People want everything to seem a tad more dramatic than it really is. They want a story to tell. They want to entertain. Not intentionally misleading stories, but slightly over dramatized.

(Porcupine!)

In other news, we saw horses and a porcupine today. I have not seen enough porcupines in my life.  What cute critters.  They waddle slowly, knowing that most animals can't attack them successfully. I wonder if we would move more slowly in life, enjoying the little things, if we weren't constantly afraid of things, being fired, not earning enough, being judged, the scary news reports, social status....

We ended our day by a big lake.  Toilets and picnic tables abounded, as did the people.  People fishing mostly, giving us funny looks. We decided to cook dinner there and enjoy the late sunset, but eventually headed back to where we belong, in the trees.