a couple more photos

the Chinese Wall - beautiful!



breakfast !

a couple photos between here and there

good old fairy slipper orchid Calypso bulbosa - always a pretty one...



waterfalls and snowy scenery below Piegan Pass


Beth along the approach to Triple Divide Pass. Though partially snow free, this route still left a little to be desired...

the slog through the Bob

well... we made it to Lincoln MT. The former home of the Unabomber - perhaps he even go online on this very machine in this very library - though I don't know if he used the internet, given his anti-technology stance. We now near completion of our list of errands, and look forward to dinner and wine (courtesy of Galen and Cheryl Stroab, who also kindly drove us from Rogers Pass to Lincoln) - though we may have to violate Montana's new open container law to drink it...) this evening in the county park.

Well I wish we could post some of the photos we've taken over the last couple weeks, the deep snow along the Chinese Wall, the monster trout I've been catching, the wild mountainous horizons we've gazed at along our rambles. But they'll just have to wait for later. And I'm running against the half hour time limit I've been alotted here as it is, so I'll have to keep it brief. Suffice it to say the walkings been great from East Glacier to Rogers Pass, lots of pretty country, not too many tough river crossings (many many minor ones), only one super snowy pass, "Switchback" to disorient and frustrate and tire us out. And the weather's been getting better, the rain seems to finally have moved on, save for a thunderstorm here or there. Of course, it was only a day after the rain stopped that the mosquitos started to appear. But not bad yet, not bad at all.

Pretty rainy through the Bob (occasionally referred to as the Bog by southbound CDT hikers, who hit it right smack in the rainiest and snow-meltiest time of year). Actually fell into a little perched bog (fen, I guess, it being of the calcareous spring-fed variety and thus not ombrotrophic), in addition to all the snow post-holing. One moment I was walking along, the next I was waist deep in frigid organic goo. Delightful. Will have to show you the photos later, whoever you are anyway, who may read these lines. Anyways it was pretty wet out there for the most part, muddy trails, river wading, or deep snow. A lot of fun but we were getting tired of wet feet for sure...

Met up with old friend Sundog and new friend Kristina and took a couple wonderful days off at the infamous solstice party along the Dearborn River. And the weather cleared up just in time, and we've had brilliant warm sunshine, 16 hrs a day, all summer.

The hike across the Scapegoat was the easiest yet, beautiful ridge walking, more excellent fishing, lots of views etc. You'll just have to see the photos sometime. But now my time on the computer is up, and thats about all there is to say for a while....

Glacier!

back on the trail at long last.

We had a nice journey up here, a great wedding on a sunny weekend in Yellowstone, a fine stay in Missoula, where we caught up with some friends old and new, a complicated series of rides to West Glacier where we found another friend to stay with for the night. We picked up our backcountry permits for Glacier, complete with a whole string of advisories and warnings, ranging from grizzly bears to avalanches, and ending with "itinerary not recommended". Another series of rides brought us right to the Canadian border at Chief Mtn., and we began our hike back to Cuba trudging down to the swollen Belly River on a rainy afternoon. We saw 1 other hiker that day on the trail, and met 2 others at the campground. Those would turn out to be the only other hikers we saw in backcountry of the park - though at the time we didn't know that, of course. The reasons why we were to have it pretty much to ourselves were also yet to become apparent.

The walk through Glacier was phenomenal. So good to be back in the northern Rockies, green with plenty (perhaps a little too much) spring rain, snowy crags rising straight up into the clouds, daylight from 5 am till 10 pm. The sweet smell of cottonwoods in the valleys, fir on the slopes. And up high, just mountain goats, rocks and ice. The first couple days were especially nice, even a little sunshine, and our first pass, Red Gap, almost snow free. So we were pretty optimistic about the rest of the hike through the park.

The next few days things got a lot harder, with seemingly ceaseless rain and wind. The second pass we climbed was Piegan, and in the approach up the valley we hit deep snowfields a good 2000' below the pass. The trail disappeared beneath the snow, and we were left to figure out the best route on our own, through forests, up mountainsides, across avalanche chutes littered with broken tree trunks and debris. And not quite knowing where exactly the pass was, just somewhere up there in the mists. But we perservered and eventually made it up and over, and back down the other side.

The weather got worse the next day, but with no passes to climb we made our 15 rain drenched and brushy miles by 3 pm.

The following day we hit Triple Divide pass, which splits the watersheds of Hudson Bay, the Atlantic via the Missouri, and the Pacific via the Columbia. With a name like Triple Divide it had to be tough, and it was. The rain had translated to fresh snow above 6000'; the pass is around 7400'. Not high by southern Rockies standards but plenty high for June in MT. So it was a bit of slog, with vast, strangely dimensionless snowfields to climb and cross. With the sun hidden in the cold, swirling mists, it is almost impossible to assess the steepness of a snowfield - no shadows, just white - which added to the fun of course. It took a few hours to get up the last couple miles, and guess what the view was like, over the other side - more of the same. Dramatic, beautiful, bleak, the sound of waterfalls way down there, dropping from the glaciers and perennial snowfields into the rainy valley below. But we knew it would be work breaking trail to get down there. Luckily, about halfway,we met a few mountain goats headed up, so we could at least follow their tracks to where the snow tapered off.

Basically, Triple Divide pass kicked our asses. We still had one last pass to go and a 21 mile day to get to East Glacier. And no sign of better weather. So we decided to take the first valley out of the mountains, and hike the rest of the way in the foothills and prairies. So yesterday we headed out, with the rain still relentless on our backs.
Put together a nice route across beautiful grassy bluffs and ridges, green, spangled with purple lilies and larkspur, white and red paintbrush, groves of aspen, pine and fir. And great views of the mountains - but with their fresh snow and cloudcovered summits, I can say I thought they were much better enjoyed from the distance.

20 some miles later we are in East Glacier, doing errands, enjoying the comforts of civilization once again. Have run into a couple other CDT hikers preparing to begin the trip. Hmnn, what to tell them about the route?

"It was great. You guys are going to love it."

Preparing now for the Badger - Two Medicine/Bob/Scapegoat. We are thinking about a lower route, maybe through the foothills for a day or two...