The Dago Diaries

CDT mile 2278.8, miles hiked 30

Spooky trees and cold air make it feel like Halloween

It was damp and cold when we woke, even though we are cowboy camping 10′ apart neither of us wanted to get out of bed.  I hit the snooze button on my watch a few times, yes you read that right my watch us a snooze bar, and then rolled over, lit the stove and made us coffee.  We enjoyed our hot beverage as we packed up, both of us wore all of our clothes and in a flash, we started up the path.  We had 30 miles to get to town and we agreed if we couldn’t make the road by 7 we would wait to go in the next day.

We made good time, one benefit of the cold is we hike faster to stay warm.  The trail took us up a decent climb so by the time the sun was starting to change night into day we were stripping off the heavy layers and just wore our thermals and light wind shirts for the first part of the early morning.

A unique rocky top mountain

The sun came up and light up the forest so at 8 AM we laid in the sun’s rays basking in the warmth.  By the time we got moving the clouds were back and we had to get moving to get warm.  The trail was nice, the terrain stuck to the divide and we never had any major climbs.

We had plenty of cell signal once we hit the road so we had some fun online posting pictures on Instagram and the like.  Tatu-Jo had a field day with me being a sponsored hiker and our humor was probably lost on some but the comments we got from friends helped the miles go by quick.  At one point we were joking around so much we missed our turn to the trail.

Trail signage

Tatu-Jo and I decided we would bushwhack back up to the trail instead of backtracking.  Soon I found myself walking uphill through blowdown hell.  I swear the state of the forest in this country is really sad.  We worked our way up, over, under and around the various blowdowns until we rejoined the trail.

Finally, at 10 til 6 we passed through a gate that was 1 mile from McDonald Pass.  We sat down for a final snack and slug of water and then powered out the last mile to make the highway and get to town.  After about 15 minutes a guy in a Highlander picked us up and gave us a ride to town.  He even took the time to drop us at our hotel.

As the tired hikers we were, we dropped out packs in the room and went for food.  We passed a Thai restaurant and the smell of fresh curry drew us in.  We sat down to a great meal of soup, satay, and curry.  Then walked up the street to get some ice cream.

When I got back to our hotel I finally got to talk to home.  Unfortunately, it was not a great call.  Suzy informed me that tomorrow is her last day at work, the company is not doing well so they are laying people off and she was in this round.  After calming her down and assuring her things would be alright, we talked about the nuts and bolts of the next few weeks and my return.  I told her to take a few weeks and enjoy the end of summer, do her artwork and enjoy some rest.

I know that things will work out in the end, one thing the tail teaches you is that no matter how hard, how bad or how what the heck moment you are dealing with is, at the end of the day it all works out.  Now I just need to avoid getting eaten by a Grizzly Bear between here and the border and life will be good in the end.

CDT mile 2216.7, miles hiked 18

new socks!

We slept in until 7 neither one of us wanting to admit we needed to be awake.  We laid around playing online and then said let’s eat.  We strolled down to a coffee shop and enjoyed lattes and the local favorite, pasties for breakfast.  Once the post office opens we went to retrieve packages.

It was Christmas once again for me.  I had my bounce bucket and another box I had sent from Lima.  Plus Mont-bell sent me a new down jacket because of my other one was so big from all the weight I have lost.  Point6 sent me 2 new pairs of socks to get me to the end. My dear friend Space Girl had sent me a care package, thank you! And I also had my standard box of food with a letter from Suzy.  Tatu-Jo and I hauled the stuff back to our room and got sorting.

The taxidermy shop was a sight to behold

Once we finished our sorting and repackaging we packed up our backpacks, returned to the post office to mail some stuff off and then started to walk out of town.  As we approached the end of town we made a few stops. CVS and Albertson’s for a few sundries and snacks, then McDonald’s where we chowed down lunch.  I ended the shopping with a visit to Subway to use the gift card from my folks and got a foot long sub for dinner to save cooking.

Oh Anaconda

We strolled down the highway and turned onto a secondary road that sucked.  People were driving 60-mph and we had little to no shoulder to walk on.  We did ok though and then turned onto Warm Springs Road which made us walk by the state mental hospital, it was like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.  We finally hit a dirt road that wound through the hills and by many a ranch home.

The famous Anaconda smokestack

We saw some horse and stopped to say hi.  We grabbed some of the green plants along the road and fed them snacks and petted them.  After our horsing around we headed up the canyon.  We passed through a sheep farm, by some cows and a wood fence post operation before finally finding a camp tucked along the road in some trees.

Tatu-Jo always making friends along the way

We stopped a little early so we could get more rest and enjoy our first night out of town.  Two back to back 30’s will land us in Helena our next to last town stop before the Canadian border.

CDT mile 2248.8, miles hiked 32

cold morning along the divide

Since we are approaching Glacier National Park in a couple of weeks it was time to start making a game plan for our ending.  So today as we hiked we discussed how many miles we should plan to do, our strategy for bear country, and if we should speed up or slow our roll.

fall is here and winter is coming

The sky was cloudy from the moment we woke up. The air was cold too, in fact, it felt colder today than it has in months.  The wind was blowing and as we hiked in the dark both of us tried to sink as deep as we could I to our hoods to stay warm.  As the sun rose we saw what our day would be, low dark clouds.

The wind and the air had a bite to it, it felt more like late September than late August.  As we wound our way through the hills we enjoyed sweeping views of the valley and comm eyes as to how we could still see the Anaconda smokestack, aka the dick of Montana as I learned.  All day we joked about how winter was coming early and how our friends behind us by a couple of weeks are going to get clobbered.

Finally, at 6 we sat down for a break and to put on our extra layers as the sun was dipping low and we were getting cold.  We also decided to work out our game plan.  We both agreed we should push hard and not slow down.  So we worked out our mileage and when we would hit the park.  September 6th is our estimated arrival at East Glacier, the day after Labor Day.  Our plan is to end on September 10 up at Watertown lake.  We had originally planned to hike the high route back to East Glacier, but we got a text from maverick telling us the high line is closed due to grizzly activity.

The remains of an old cabin

So tomorrow we have to load up and haul our butts as fast as possible to McDonald pass so we can get to Helena and book our permits.  It’s funny in just over two weeks this will all come to end, yeah sometimes it seems like yesterday I was standing at Crazy Cook. I would love for this thing to last forever, but I’ve seen enough snow this hiking season so a push to the end it is.

CDT mile 2198.7, miles hiked 35

Tatu-Jo  crosses Storm Pass on our way to Anaconda

“Hey Allgood you waking up or what?” Is what Tatu-Jo yelled at me it was 4:45 and I had slept right through the alarm.  I jumped up, lit my stove for coffee and got packing.  Soon enough my pack was on my back and we were walking in the pitch dark.  As we turned a corner we saw eyes glowing, I was behind Tatu-Jo and he said, “it’s a bear” but it was just a deer and he started laughing.

As the sun came up we climbed to the top of Rainbow Mountain, it was a sunny day but an ice-cold wind was blowing, in fact, it blew all night and we were sure the fires would be getting big because of them, however I think the wind shifted and blew some of the fires out by shifting the fire back onto itself.  After crossing the top we started back down the other side, today was a serious day we had many miles to hike so we snacked as we walked.

Look closely and you’ll see the trail in the upper left-hand corner

At about 8AM we came walking down the trail and saw Stumbling Beef and his brother Two Roll.  We stopped and chatted for a bit, they were going the butte route so we will probably see them again up the trail.  Tatu-Jo and I climbed up to the next pass, it was a steep one but quick and then we turned to climb up to Storm Pass and the Anaconda cutoff to town.

The cutoff trail was cool it descended the pass on a stick trail and we found ourselves in a big glacial cirque.  The trail made a big hotshot around storm lake so we bushwhacked through the forest to cut it off and even though we had to navigate off trail we saved some miles.  We had to bushwhack a few miles when the trail disappeared but eventually, it dumped us onto a dirt road.

An old cabin that could use some TLC

We passed an old cabin along the way and then we came upon the coolest thing I have seen, a wood flume.  Now this flume was like none other I have seen, it was built to carry snow run off to a reservoir and it was made from old growth Doug Fir.  The flume was built in the 1950’s and operated until 2011.  It would transport 40,000 gallons a minute and was over 3 1/2 miles long a modern marvel you might say.

We came to the highway and started walking the pavement to town.  It was still a long way to go but we move good on pavement and just suck it up.  About half way to town a nice old lady stopped in the middle of the highway and asked if we were CDT hikers, we told her where we were from and she said, “oh wish I had something for you” we said just saying hello was enough and away she went.

flume info

the last remaining section of the flume

We stopped on the side of the road for a break and had a snack as we started to leave the same little old lady pulled up and said here is some Montana hospitality and handed each of us a shopping bag. In it was homemade burritos, cut watermelon, salsa and homemade cold Orange Julius.  Man what an amazing act of kindness and trail magic we were floored by it.  After eating our treat we carried on to town.

When we hit town we stopped at the gas station for a soda, and asked where to eat.  They recommended DQ I like that but when we got there it was outside seating and it was windy and cold.  We kept walking to our hotel, and across the street saw a casino and restaurant.  The restaurant was closed but the casino had sandwiches and hot dogs if you gambled.  The girl said we didn’t need to gamble and gave each of us a few sandwiches and hot dogs before we went to our hotel.

Anaconda Montana

The hotel was the Celtic House Inn, and it is located upstairs from the Harp Irish bar.  Now on the AT a similar place exist called the Doyle and this old brick bar and hotel reminded us of it.  We went in and checked in with the bartender we talked about our hike and young girl at the bar inquired if we had hiked the AT, yes we have. She asked if we had stayed at the Doyle and we told her how we were commenting on how this place was just like it, lo and behold she grew up in Duncannon, PA.

Her name was Taylor and she is a very nice young lady.  When we lamented the lack of places to eat within walking distance she offered to drive us to dinner.  We stashed our packs in the room and off we went for real grub.  We enjoyed eating at the Haufbrauh where she waits tables when not teaching yoga and enjoyed BBQ and beers a great way to end our day.

CDT mile 2163.7, miles hiked 30 (+2 when lost)

Rainbow Pass

I laid in my bag for a good 20 minutes watching the shooting stars of the meteor shower before my alarm went off at 4:30.  I made some coffee, packed up and Tatu-Jo and I set off on our day.  The trail went up and down the divide and we made really good time.

As we descended to Pintler Creek we were chatting away telling stories.  A mile or so later I felt like something was wrong and looked at my GPS, yup we were a mile off trail down a pack trail.  So we decided to consult our map to see if we could go a different way but we couldn’t, so we turned around and hiked back to the trail junction.

The Pintlers are a swimmers dream come true

When we arrived we looked around and found our correct trail, there was a wood CDT sign but it was faded and the brand no longer had any black char lines, so I took out my sharpie and filled in the lines for those behind us.   We took a break and did our ab work out we had missed two days so we did 24 reps of each exercise by the end we were in pain.

The next part of the day was spent pass bagging.  We first topped out at Pintler Pass and on the way down met a trail crew out for a day hike on their day off. Then it was Rainbow Pass which dropped us by Rainbow Lake.  We took a break at the lake and I soaked my feet and washed up.

The next pass was not a true pass but instead crossed a saddle and dropped us at Warren Lake.  There we heard voices and met two ladies out for a section hike of the CDT.  One of them was a retired lawyer and she told us about thru-hiking the PCT in 1982, very cool.  Our final pass was Cutaway Pass.

Cutaway Pass is a long climb, 1600′ vertical but over 3.7 miles so it was a never-ending uphill grade.  As we climbed we saw a new set of smoke over the mountains.  As we got higher we realized it was a new fire and we were skirting it.  I swear I feel like the fire walker these days and I am sure everyone behind us is convinced me and Tatu-Jo are starting them.  The air got smokey which really is not fun when going uphill.  Finally, as the sun was setting we crested the top of Cutaway Pass, there we saw the fading glow of red on the mountains and smoke settling into the valley.

Fires are keeping us motivated to get north

We hiked on a couple of miles, grabbed water and settled in for the night among the trees.  Tomorrow we kick things off with a climb and then a bushwhack.  We are heading to Anaconda, MT in the morning a short 35-mile jaunt.

Alpenglow on the Pintlers

CDT mile 2133.7, miles hiked 28

Wait are we on the AT?

Man oh man was the pack heavy when I heaved it on this morning, both Tatu-Jo and I way overpacked food on this leg, so much so we knew we needed to eat all day to lessen the load.  We took off and walked through the forest in the dark, we keep an eye out for wildlife but didn’t see anything until twilight.  The terrain in front of us in a forest of burned out trees, among them, stood two massive bucks and a doe deer.  They couldn’t tell what we were so we watched them for a few minutes then moved on and so did the deer.

The sun started to come up as we walked through an open area due to a massive fire some years back, the small scrubby underbrush and grasses glistens with frost and once again reminded us that fall is coming.  Lee and her husband Ed told us that in Montana fire seasons ends September 22, because they always have a snow by then, hope we don’t see it before we are done.

Blowdowns for miles AKA CDT Olympic Hurdles

We stopped in the sun to stay warm and got to eating, I had a honeybun, then some bars, a bunch of cookies my folks sent and a sandwich I had packed out.  This was only 1 of many food breaks today where I gorged myself.  Once we got back to the hiking the trail was easy until we hit a set of blowdowns worthy of Colorado.  Since it is the Olympics we had our own set of CDT hurdles to contend with, the going was slow but for once I didn’t get cut up on the darn things.

We soon entered a valley where we filled water for the rest of the day since the next reliable water was over 12 miles.  As we climbed up we could see the Annaconda-Pintlers range and it’s very similar to the winds with steep peaks, granite faces, and many lakes.  We crossed into the wilderness and less than a 1/4 mile was Surprise Lake a stunner of a high alpine lake with crytsal clear water.

Surprise Lake

For the rest of the day, we wove our way up and down the divide.  The area is a cross of forest and burn areas.  The burn areas are ok but I wish I could of seen the thick forest of years back.

Towards the end of the day we spoke about how the hike is wrapping up, and our future plans.  Tatu-Jo has a job to return to but I do not.  I have been doing a lot of soul searching trying to decide what the next chapter in my life will be, but I guess I’ll let you know when I do.  All I have planned now is to get to Canada, do some extra hiking in glacier if weather allows and then go home and see Suzy, Karluk and Rabbit and enjoy home life for awhile.