Day 148: Hunters! Hunters! Everywhere!

September 15: I didn't sleep well during the night. Super strong wind gusts picked up, which not only generated a lot of disturbing noise, but also left me worrying about the stakes holding down my tarp getting ripped out. Although the stakes did hold, it still left me largely sleepless for most of the night.

I lingered in camp until about 8:30am. It was a beautiful albeit windy morning. The trail headed down a steep valley before largely leveling out the rest of the day.

 

The Spotted Bear alternate route that I followed eventually recombined with the red main-line CDT route in the early afternoon, and now that I was back on the main route, I took a look at the Guthook mileage and realized that I was about 10 miles behind the schedule I thought I had been following. Oops! So I mentally added an extra 5 miles to today's hike. Instead of the planned 15 miles I'd do for the day, I'd shoot for closer to 20. I'd do the same for tomorrow as well.

With an extra two-or-so hours of hiking to do, I wished I had started a bit earlier. Perhaps at 7:30am instead of the 8:30am when I actually started. That would have better suited me, but there was no changing the past--I'd have to live with my mistake. At least the problem wasn't critical.

In the early afternoon, I passed one CDT hiker heading southbound, a fellow who had started hiking from the Mexican border then flip-flopped to Canada to get through that section before the snows started. I hadn't crossed paths with him before, though. We talked for a few minutes before continuing on our separate ways.

Given how late in the hiking season it was getting, I figured I'd be passing all sorts of people who were flip-flopping, but they were surprisingly scarce. In all, I could count on one hand the number of flip-floppers I would pass on the trail with lots of fingers to spare. I wondered how many hikers were still behind me. I knew there were some, but it couldn't be very many, nor very far back. Anyone more than a week or two behind me would almost certainly have to flip-flop in order to be assured of finishing the trail this year, but they just weren't flip-flopping which made me think that there weren't many people that far back. I was near the back of the pack.

Late in the afternoon, I passed quite a few hunters on the trail, walking around with their giant rifles and leading or riding horses along the trail. Generally speaking, they were friendly and always asked if I saw any elk today, but I hadn't and told them as such. Apparently, elk hunting season started today according to the guys I talked to. Good to know, and that would certainly explain the sudden presence of so many hunters after seeing none for so long.

Two of the hunters I met up with reported that they shot a 7-point buck and were now heading back to their campsite to get their horses. They needed the horses to help carry the 1,200-pound carcass back to the trailhead. They had planned to be out there for the better part of a week, but now that they got their elk, that was out the window. They'd pick up the buck and go home. I think their permit only allowed them to shoot one animal so once they got it, they basically had to stop hunting, and they seemed almost a little disappointed about the fact--despite being so happy about getting themselves a 7-point buck.

Late in the day, the trail passed through a large burn area, so I had trouble once again finding a good area to set up camp away from all the burned and dead tree trunks. The trail passed by one small patch that the wildfire somehow missed, but the trees were relatively thin and short and didn't provide as much protection from the wind as I would have preferred. It was the best option available, however, so I grudgingly took it.

Both rain and wind were in the forecast, so I set up my tarp which is when I discovered that one of my tent stakes was missing. Noooo! It must have somehow gotten left behind at my campsite this morning. With the strong gusts of wind, I needed every stake I had to help pin down my tarp, so I wasn't happy about this discovery. When the air is calm, I usually don't use stakes to pin down the middle of my tarp along the sides, but this was definitely not one of those nights. Nothing I could do about that now, though, except live without it. 

This small patch of trees were the only unburned trees for miles in every direction, so I tried to make the best of them to protect me against the wind and rain. But they were very thin and didn't provide much protection. At least I could be happy knowing that there weren't any dead trees close enough to fall down on me during the night! See that "divot" at the bottom in the middle of my tarp? That's a stake holding it down. The other side, however, didn't have that because I lost the stake! Booo! The other side was mostly flapping free!

This patrol cabin was locked up tight, but there was a register in the front that hikers could sign. Inside the register, other hikers had written that the outhouse behind the building had quite a nice view and gave it two thumbs up, so I went and tried it out....

I don't know how the view from the outhouse was, however, because I got absolutely engrossed by the Bugle magazine I found as reading material inside. ;o) You do have to leave the door open when you do your business, however, because otherwise it's completely dark inside. Usually there are small windows to let in the light, but this one was completely and totally dark unless you left the door open a bit.

Run, little fellow! Run! There are hunters everywhere!

This burn area was huge!

Day 147: Slowing down....

September 14: I woke up to a bitterly cold morning. Really cold! Just another reminder that the seasons were changing, and that I really needed to get this trail done. Being such a cold morning, I did not want to get out of my sleeping bag. 

 

Then I started doing some math in my head. Today was Tuesday, and my original plan had been to get into East Glacier on Sunday. A few days ago, I had managed to call the post office in Butte and had my laptop forwarded to myself in East Glacier. It's a small post office in a small town that wasn't open on Saturday or Sunday, which meant I couldn't pick it up until Monday. And I was making much better time than I had expected. At the pace I was going, I could actually get into town on Friday, but there was little hope that I'd arrive before the post office closed for the day. That would force me to take a double zero day and for what? Just to leave on Monday after picking up my package? A double zero seemed kind of pointless, so I decided that I could just slow down and enjoy my time on the trail more by reading books and relaxing. No need to rush! 

I figured just by averaging only 15 miles/day, I could still arrive in town on Saturday and enjoy a zero day on Sunday which--at this point--might be extra nice since bad weather had finally shown up in the long-term weather forecasts. I had had a surprisingly long run of pretty good weather for the past month, but that run was coming to an end.

So I was pondering all the possibilities and given how incredibly cold it was this morning decided to slow down to 15 miles/day. Which meant I could stay in my sleeping bag quite late--which is why I didn't end up ready to hike until about 9:20am.

Even this late in the morning, however, the temperature was still shockingly cold. The vegetation on the overgrown trails was still dripping with rain from yesterday afternoon, and it quickly soaked my legs and feet to the bone. It was ice cold water and pretty miserable.

By about noon, the sun had finally dried off the vegetation and the lower half of my body started warming up again.

 

Today there was only one big pass, Switchback Pass, I think, but it was a doozy with a 2500-foot climb over the top of the pass. I took my time going up, not in any particular hurry, then started descending the far side.

In the afternoon, I started looking for a place to camp which was a bit of a problem. Much of the area I was then hiking through had burned, and every hiker knows that camping in burn areas can be dangerous since dead, standing trees often fall and will kill anyone unfortunate enough to be camped under it.

So I tried looking for a place outside of the burn area, eventually settling for a grassy location a bit off trail. The part I did not like about the location, however, was that it was in front of a large mountain so I wound up being in the shadow of the mountain a full three hours before sunset was expected, which meant it was unpleasantly dark and cold all evening.

In any case, I wound up setting up camp after completing about 15 miles for the day--my new schedule to arrive into East Glacier on Saturday--and despite my very late start in the morning, I was still done by 5:00pm. Plenty of time to relax and read a book!

I went ahead and set up my tarp. The sky was clear, but given how cold it was getting, I was afraid the condensation might be pretty bad, so the tarp was meant to protect me from that. And if it keeps me a couple of degrees warmer as well, even better! =)

This cabin was locked up tight when I went by.

After drying out from the wet vegetation in the morning, I decided to ford a creek in my Crocs and keep my shoes dry. I had been tired of walking in wet shoes and refused to do it anymore today!

Day 146: The Chinese Wall

September 13: It didn't rain during the night, but it did start to sprinkle as I was eating breakfast so I decided to lay around in my sleeping bag and hoped to wait it out. IB Tat filmed himself recording making coffee in the morning, an activity I knew he found annoying but did anyhow to keep his YouTube fans happy. He didn't let the rain stop him from packing up and leaving before I did, however.

It wasn't until about 8:00am when I finally broke down camp and started hiking.

Today would be a fairly rugged day of hiking with lots of ups and downs. In all, my GPS would record about 4000 feet of ups and another 4000 feet of downs. Not as bad some some recent days, but definitely comparable to a typical day in Colorado which is no easy feat!

I was looking forward to seeing the Chinese Wall this afternoon. I'd been hearing stories about it from other hikers for eons. That and this area in the Bob Marshall Wilderness in general were among some of the most popular areas along the trail, and today I would finally see the Chinese Wall for myself. IB Tat said he had spent time in this area before and was excited to be back at the Chinese Wall again--almost deliriously happy to be back, it seemed to me.

And it was.... nice. It was a huge wall thrust out of the ground, several miles long--so long, that there was no point along the trail where you could see the entire thing. It was dramatic and beautiful, but I still found myself a little disappointed with it. Perhaps everyone had built it up so much in my mind that it was bound to disappoint. I'm sure I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I had no idea it was there and "discovered" it for myself.

Most of the day, I followed along near the base of the Chinese Wall in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, which was dramatic, but at no point could I see the entire wall much less fit it in a photo!

 

I caught up with IB Tat taking a break in front of the wall. He would be the only hiker I saw all day, but when I passed him at his break, he did report seeing Just Awesome so he couldn't have been far ahead even though I never did cross paths with him.

Shortly after that, I took a wrong turn at a junction and wound up getting off trail for about a half hour. Argh! In the grand scheme of things, I only lost a half hour of time, but I was still annoyed at having to backtrack back to the trail. If I had checked my GPS more often, I could have caught the mistake much sooner.

Late in the day, I deliberately veered off the main red-line CDT onto the Spotted Bear Alternate. There were conflicting accounts about which route was nicer. It sounded like the first half of the main red-line route was prettier, but then the second half of the alternate was better which probably added to the confusion. Hiking the first part on the main red-line CDT then taking a side trail to the second half of the Spotted Bear Alternate would probably be the most scenic option of all, and if time weren't an issue, that's probably what I would have chosen, but still a little concerned about getting done with the trail before the snow started flying, I decided to take the shortest route which was the Spotted Bear Alternate.

It sprinkled a bit in the afternoon--not so hard that I needed an umbrella--but it was enough to get all of the vegetation wet and when I reached the overgrown alternate, the water from the vegetation absolutely soaked my legs and feet with cold water. That was pretty unpleasant and annoying.

I soon reached a clearing by a creek and called it a day. I switched out into my warm, dry camp clothes and made myself comfortable. Thus ended another day on the trail.............

At one point, I spotted a mountain goat on the Chinese Wall. I zoomed in as much as I could and digitally zoomed in as much as possible, but this was the best I could get. See that white spot near the center of the photo? Mountain goat! I'm just amazed at the places these guys can climb up to. There is no way in the world I could climb to this point and not fall to my death!

The wall just keeps going and going and going....

Home, sweet, home for the night!

Day 145: Leaving Augusta

September 12: I ate breakfast at the restaurant attached to the motel where I ordered pancakes, eggs and sausage patties--all of which were very filling and delicious! Joining me were four other thru-hikers: IB Tat, Jazz Hands, Click and Just Awesome, so we swapped trail stories and generally had a good old time.

Fortunately, I didn't have to worry about hitching a ride back to the trailhead. There was a trail angel in town, Frank, who gave rides to hikers

For breakfast, I stopped at the restaurant attached to the motel. (That big window on the right is the restaurant part.)

He was planning to drive anyone who needed a ride out that morning, but that put me in a bit of a bind since I still needed to drop by the grocery store to resupply. IB Tat also had some tasks to take care of, and Frank said he'd go ahead and give everyone else a ride, then make a second trip later in the morning or early afternoon for me and IB Tat. He had to go back to the trailhead anyhow to pick up hikers that had texted to let him know that they'd be arriving.

So that worked out really well for me. After breakfast, Jazz Hands, Click and Just Awesome got a ride from Frank back to the trail. IB Tat went back to his room to do some work for his YouTube blog, I assume. And I headed over to the grocery store to resupply.

The general store was sufficient for my purposes but hardly a supermarket. It was adequate, though.

Back at the motel and campground, after packing up my pack, IB Tat checked out of his room and we sat around chatting and killing time until Frank returned and gave us a ride back. IB Tat seemed a little confused about exactly where Frank had picked him up to go into town, and Frank told him precisely where he was when he was picked up. It seemed important to IB Tat that his steps stay connected, so I found it a little amusing when he seemed a bit confused about directions.

I, on the other hand, knew exactly where I had walked in from and asked to be dropped off at the junction just past the airfield, which--as it turned out--was exactly where IB Tat needed to be dropped off as well. Frank drove onward, checking two different trailheads where hikers might have come out at and could be waiting. I gave Frank a $20 for his gas and time. He never asked me for any money and I had assumed that he was just offering these rides for free because he was generous and enjoyed the hiking community, although when I talked with someone later, they said that Frank actually required a payment. It wasn't an unreasonable request--this trailhead was a long drive from town and the cost of gas and wear and tear on his vehicle was undoubtedly very real, but it seemed like the type of thing he might have mentioned before giving someone a ride.

Anyway, given how far out of the way it was to drive to this remote trailhead, I felt perfectly happy offering $20 for the lift. Still a lot cheaper than an Uber! It was about 1:00pm when we got dropped off. I lingered for a few minutes to eat a snack. It was lunchtime by now, and I felt a bit peckish. So I ate some snacks for a few minutes, then continued up the gravel road in the direction IB Tat had already started hiking.

A short bit of gravel road to walk before hitting real trails again.

 I followed the gravel road only for a couple of miles, I think, before it reconnected with real trails. All-in-all, it was a pretty easy day of hiking. Very flat, very easy.

The only problem was a bit of sprinkling late in the afternoon--a sprinkle that had not shown up in the weather forecast--but it wasn't so hard that I ever pulled out my umbrella.

And, a couple of hours into my hike, I saw a lone figure hiking in the opposite direction and quickly realized... I knew that person! It was Foxy! Who I had last seen after hiking into Pinedale, WY, together. I knew she had planned to flip-flop to the Canadian border and start hiking southbound, but I was surprised to see her so far north. I had expected our paths would have crossed a week or two earlier, and assumed that maybe they had but that we had taken different routes or managed to miss each other in a trail town somewhere. Particularly on that Super Butte Cutoff, we could have easily have taken two entirely different routes and passed each other without even knowing it. So I was a bit surprised to find her still so far to the north.

She told me that flip-flopping with Prince had probably been a mistake. It took a lot longer to get to the Canadian border than she had expected, she had trouble getting a permit for Glacier NP, and soon after, Prince wound up quitting the trail so now she was hiking alone and still had the better part of a month to hike before reconnect with where she had gotten off the trail to flip flop, but that she was still determined to finish the trail this year no matter what. I believed her, too!

We only chatted for a few minutes, though. Foxy was anxious to get into Augusta to resupply. She said she passed IB Tat not long before me--not a bit surprise there since we had gotten a ride to the trailhead together--but that he reported having seen a baby bear on the trail somewhere nearby and that he hadn't see the mama bear but wanted to make sure to get well away from the area before mama returned. 

Crossing paths with a familiar face--Foxy!

With that report, I kept my eyes particularly alert for bears--babies or otherwise--but never saw any. I guess IB Tat scared them off.

By about 6:00pm, I was ready to quit for the day. I had only covered about 13 miles, but with the dark, menacing clouds lurking overhead, the light was getting tough to take photos and I liked the idea of setting up camp before any real rain might start.

It happened to be where IB Tat had already set up his tent. There was plenty of room nearby for other hikers, but before setting up my own camp, I asked if he'd mind if I set up nearby. He said it wasn't a problem, and I quickly set up my tarp for the night.

He spent most of the night working on his YouTube video for the day. I'm still amazed that he puts out a YouTube video every single day on the trail--and even does the editing for the videos each evening in his tent. It's all I can do just to write in my journals on a reliable basis. I gave up trying to actually write blog posts while on the trail. But he manages to do a YouTube post for every single day of the trail. It sounded awful, truth be told.

We did chat for a bit and he did admit that it was exhausting at times, and he often didn't want to do it. But it was a relatively easy way to make a few bucks that allowed him to do hikes like this in the first place, which made it worthwhile. I could definitely understand that sentiment.

Having stopped so early in the evening, that gave me plenty of time to watch some Netflix videos on my phone and read my Kindle. Living the good life! And, of course, writing the days adventure in my journal so I could still post reliably about it a year after the fact. =)

IB Tat by his tent for the night.

More evidence that the seasons are changing....

I think a bear did this? I'm not sure what the tree did to piss off  the bear so much that it would attack the tree, though! (Just kidding... probably getting to the sap or insects under the bark or something. I don't really know, though.)

Day 144: The Augusta Hitch

September 11: Just as a quick note about dates.... if you noticed, I marked this day's post as having happened September 11th, while today is September 12th. But! It did not happen yesterday. It happened one year ago! My CDT hike was so long, and the three-posts-per-week schedule I keep, means my posts are now a full year out of date! So just remember, when you see dates listed for the rest of the this blog, we're talking about last year. However, the time of year when I did the hike is basically the same time of year it is now when I'm posting it.

 

Despite the rain all night long, I stayed pleasantly dry under my tarp. =)

So... back to your regular scheduled programming. It sprinkled for much of the night, and the morning clouds were so thick, it didn't get light enough to hike until fairly late in the morning. Which allowed me to sleep in a bit, but it also meant I didn't get started hiking until about 7:40am.

Nor did the sprinkles did stop. It continued to sprinkle lightly on and off throughout the morning. Only for about one 10-minute period did the rain get heavy enough for me to pull out my umbrella, but I still found it all quite annoying.

I did, however, make great time hiking down the trail. The trail was super flat and easy, and I pushed through nearly 20 miles before reading the trailhead at about 3:00 in the afternoon.

There's a small airfield there, and I waited near it for about an hour on a gravel road hoping to hitch a ride into town. During that hour, only one vehicle went by... and it didn't stop to pick me up. Curse you, driver!

If only there were a plane nearby to whisk me into town! Now that would have been an awesome resupply!

 

Unfortunately, hitching a ride was pretty much a requirement. The town I needed to resupply at, Augusta, was located about 30 miles down this gravel road--way too far for me to walk into today. I had gotten the impression that hitching a ride wasn't terribly difficult, but maybe my being there after Labor Day caused a lot fewer people to be traveling to this remote trailhead?

I decided to start walking down the gravel road into town. I had no intention of walking all the way into town, but I figured the network of small roads combined like tributaries to create a large river. I hoped if I walked far enough down the road, the network of smaller roads would combine into a bigger road and improve my chances of getting more traffic and therefore a better chance of getting a ride.

A half hour later of walking, traffic never really picked up, but one truck finally drove by in my direction and I stuck out my thumb and this time, the vehicle stopped. Yes! Praise the Lord!

The man introduced himself as Tall Paul, and I was immensely grateful that I didn't have to walk anymore off trail. It only took an hour and a half to get a ride, but at least I got one.

He drove me all the way into Augusta, and I tried checking into the Wagon Wheel Motel. But, alas, they reported that their rooms were full. No space available. A quick Google search of the area found no other reasonably-priced lodging available. Crap. *sigh* Some on, man! It's after Labor Day! Why haven't all the tourists gone home?

So I went with Plan B, which was to pay $20 for a campsite adjacent to the hotel. I hate paying for campsites. For the last 5 months, I'd basically been camping for free pretty much anywhere I wanted. The idea of paying to be in a crowded campsite with lots of other people didn't appeal to me at all. I could have tried looking for a place to stealth camp at the edge of town, but figured this would be easier. I didn't have to be sneaky about it, and I could get a wi-fi connection at the motel, take a shower and hang out inside the restaurant/bar if I got tired of hanging out outside.

Once that was taken care of, I started doing my usual town chores: laundry and showers. Inside the bar, I chatted with a few locals including one who worked as a park ranger in Glacier NP who warned me not to try sneaking through the park without a permit. They catch those kind of people all the time. I had no intention of hiking through without a permit, but I was a little curious about what they do to such law-breakers. I didn't ask, though. I figured he'd probably assume that I was assessing my chances of whether or not it was worth sneaking through the park.

The next day, him and a couple of buddies were planning to hunt some grouse. I assured him that he could practically just stick out his hand and catch one and wring its neck. The grouse seemed to be everywhere, and they didn't seem to have any fear of people often letting me hike by them quite close. It seemed a little unfair to hunt grouse, really. They seemed too stupid for it to be a real sport.

He asked me what kind of grouse I had seen, but that... I had no idea. Apparently, you can tell them apart based on their eyes or the patterns around their eyes. I hadn't seen enough of them close enough to identify them based on their eyes, though, so I had no idea. But the grouse were definitely out there in large numbers.

Back outside, in the evening, I chatted with Jazz Hands until late into the night. He was also camped at the campground, and this is when I learned that the headlamp I found in the yurt a couple of days back was his. If only I had carried to here, I could have returned it.... Oh, well.

There were a few other thru-hikers around that I saw glimpses of such as IB Tat and Just Awesome, but they had gotten into town early enough to score an actual motel room and weren't stuck outside camping with Jazz Hands and myself.

By around 11:00pm, I finally laid out my groundsheet and cowboy camped near a picnic table for the night. My day was done!

Pretty much every day I'd see grouse on the trail. I didn't always get photos of them, but they were everywhere! And did not seem to have a healthy fear of people.

Look at those fall colors! Awesome!

If anything goes wrong in this wilderness area, just blame the goats!

I didn't see this warning until after leaving the wilderness area. It was posted at the trailhead. Why do I never learn of these things until they're already behind me?!