Its fingerprints are all around us. The lingering patches of snow that still cling to the coolest of high alpine corners. The lifeblood of the thick carpet of tundra-thriving grasses, bold enough to color such a forbidding landscape with their flowering blooms. Even the glaciers that long ago sculpted the waves of stone we've called home for these past 6 weeks.
Continental Divide Trail 2020
Daily dispatches and photos from the Continental Divide Trail, a 2975-mile footpath stretching along the Rocky Mountains from Mexico to Canada.
The Art of the Perfect Near-o
There's an art to performing the perfect near-o. It takes just the right mix of near-zero miles (hence the name “near-o”), but also a healthy dose of town food and, potentially, transportation to or from the trail. Nail all three, stick the landing and you have yourself a textbook near-o. Limit the miles to less than five and you've got what our good friend Gazelle would lovingly call a “hard near-o”.
No Thanks, Thunderhead
I thought we were done with this foolishness. If there was one thing we had no interest in seeing, it was yet another storm cloud to start the day. The forecast certainly made no mention of them, and yet there it was, dominating an otherwise azure sky, pouring rain on the valley below and now chasing us down with alarming speed.
This is Where I Leave You
Everyone learns differently. Myself? I've always been more visual than auditory, which made a brief time this morning all the more interesting as I became transfixed by the bugling of the resident elk herd. Unmoved by our presence in their valley last night, we awoke to find them sprawled across the high alpine meadows just beneath the Divide, happily grazing away and calling to one another.
Farewell, July
The older I get, the faster time passes. As a kid, summers felt like they would last forever, each day stretching to its maximum, time expanding as if exposing a flaw in Einstein’s theory of relativity. I miss that feeling—the feeling of infinite time. A never ending summer.
The Wilderness Paradise
Edward Abbey had it right. So did E.T. There's no place quite like home. Not the four walls and roof that most of us immediately conjure in our minds when we think of what “home” means, but the other “home”. The one stripped clean of steel and pavement, the place that we’re truly from. It's easy to forget.
Threading the Needle
Life is full of curveballs—no different here than at home. Adaptivity, above nearly all else, is a prized commodity when the best plan is to obliterate any plan from your mind. Mike Tyson, the colorful and feared heavyweight champion, said it best: “Everyone’s got a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Better yet: don't get punched in the mouth.
Rookie Perspective #3: A July in Colorado. My Top Eleven.
The last time this rookie wrote we hadn’t even started hiking in CO yet. And, here we are, just three days (less than 70 miles) from the New Mexico border. I have a lot more miles under my belt, but don’t worry, I’m still a rookie.
The Case for Less Stuff
It's funny what you don't miss. Maybe surprising is a better word. When you first leave everything behind, my mind makes plenty of room to pine for the things I don't have. That cozy, familiar bed? I miss it. The couch, the chair, the dining room table? The books, trinkets, toys, and artwork hanging on the walls? There's a slightly uneasy, untethered feeling to being without them.
This Never Gets Old
I'm sitting on the beach in the Bahamas. The water is an impossibly deep shade of turquoise, the sand as bright and fine as baking flour. The wind blows, filtering through the palm trees and issuing a gentle, constant rustling sound as they sway slightly.
Trailside Chats: Sweet Pea
I could tell you about the day and how the trail is now referred to only as Trail 813 on all recent signage, as if it were a prison inmate with only a number to replace its actual name, but I've got a better idea. Instead of my usual philosophical ramblings, I figured it was time to shed some light on these three phenomenal people I have the good fortune to be spending so much time on the trail with.
Trailside Chats: Ace
Inching ever closer to the end of Colorado, there was nowhere to hide from the relentless wind—a preview of what is sure to come in New Mexico. Hearing myself think over the wind was a challenge in its own right, which made it all the more enjoyable when I sat down for a Q&A with Ace, aka Emily Newcomer, over dinner in a quiet, sheltered spot among the pines...
Trailside Chats: Beardoh
New Mexico at last! A few short miles delivered us to Cumbres Pass and another hitch in the backup of a pickup truck to the nearby town of Chama. After being turned away by the miles of snow slogging in Montana, spending the month of July traversing the state of Colorado was a redemption of sorts.
A Parting of Ways
We're missing something. Well, two somethings. Two someones, to be precise, and it hasn't felt the same without them.
When Montana Met Idaho
To an outsider, they seem the same. Those are probably fightin’ words to the locals. Returning to the land where this trip had all began, I'd forgotten how challenging it can be to know which state you're in at any given moment. High atop the divide, the trail is more often than not the line of demarcation between Idaho and Montana.
A History of PUDs
It's the dirtiest of words out here: PUDs. Pointless Ups and Downs. It behooves you not to complain too much when you've signed up of your own volition to walk from one side of the country to the other, but PUDs are like the proverbial thorn in your side, the pebble in your shoe, the tiny thorn entangled deep in the fibers of your sock that you just can't shake…
Big Hole
Prying apart a seemingly endless expanse of emerald green forest, a bright golden sea of grass cradles a hardy stock of ranchers and a lazy, winding river that courses through it. Late summer stacks and rolls of bailed hay dot the fertile land by the thousands. It's the kind of place Monet would have come to paint had he not found haystacks closer to home. That's the Big Hole Valley.
Feel the Burn
Fire, as it turns out, respects no boundary. Early in the morning, we entered into the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness, marking a new range of peaks that I'd been looking forward to since our return to Montana. Passing by the wilderness boundary, it's almost reflexive to think that there's some imaginary dividing line beyond which the landscape will instantaneously change into an idyllic wilderness.
America’s Backbone
Not humid, but something masquerading as that. Close. Like the air had taken on a new quality, one that bound it more tightly around you. My tiny brain sought out some sort of explanation but found none. All I knew was that I was hot, and I had a salt stained shirt to prove it. This is why I guzzle electrolytes like I own stock in Gatorade and Pedialyte.
The Sun is Not My Friend
It's my fault somehow, that much I know. A punishment for some past transgression, perhaps. A punishment I receive over and over again, my own version of Sisyphus’ fate, stuck in an endless loop. The sun is my kryptonite.
Angel from Montgomery
Standing at the kitchen sink, she gazes out into the stifling heat of a Deep South summer’s evening, the fire red sun hanging briefly against a gray sky before dipping to the horizon. A middle-aged woman wondering how another day locked in the same listlessness has come and gone, wondering “is this really all there is?”
Carcass Highway
If you feel like you haven't seen anything good, than you just haven't been paying attention. You also might think that even while paying close attention walking 25 miles of nothing but roads might be the time when that wisdom falls apart. Not today.
The Day that Time Stood Still
When we'd dusted the sleep from our eyes and set off down the trail, the morning sun was ablaze as a scarlet fireball hanging low in the sky. A thick haze seemed to be everywhere, giving the impression that we might be entering an impenetrable fog at any moment.
Serendipity
It didn't go as planned, but not in the way you initially might think. Most of us are hard wired to assume that a departure from the plan is, by default, a bad thing. But some of the greatest aspects of thru-hiking are the unexpected twists of fortune that swing the other way, delivering you a surprise that you never could have anticipated when the day began.
The Death of Puritanism
The world is infatuated with purity tests, or so it seems. And right when I fall into the obvious trap of thinking this must be a new phenomenon with blame to be placed squarely on the Facebooks and Twitters of the world, I stop and remember that: 1) almost nothing is new; and 2) being puritanical certainly is not.
Gear Porn
I'm beginning to sense a pattern. Up until a few short days ago, warm weather and clear skies had been the norm since we'd returned to Montana. Two days south of Helena that all changed as the blue skies with long views vanished, replaced by a smoky haze that has stubbornly refused to move on down the road. Each Montanan we cross paths with tells the same story…
Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde
Looking back at the hillside it was nestled into, surrounded by a maturing forest of pine, you have to shake yourself a bit to even wonder: that's an outfitter up there? Even as it shrunk into the distance, I had to assure myself that it had not been a mirage.
The Winter Solstice of Hiking
Anything worth doing is worth doing right. And when you plan to have a short near-o into a town stop, you may as well do it with style and not even hike a single mile. It may not be the shortest day of the year, but it sure was the shortest day of hiking we've had on this trail (any trail?) and with the previous day’s miles having moved by faster than expected to put us here, neither of us was complaining.
Observation
Question: What's the best kind of hitch? Answer: The kind where you get one before you even start trying. After almost two full days of resting our feet, we walked along the wide paved shoulder of the one street that runs through the town of Lincoln, Montana.
Death Valley
After making a circuit around the airspace above our hammocks, it landed, and then perhaps not believing its eyes, took flight once again on the same circuit. Upon its second landing in the same spot, it swiveled and tilted its head almost out of disbelief, staring down at me lying in my hammock. Apparently this owl hadn't gotten the memo that we'd be invading her home for the night.
Benchmark
The wind that swirled and shrieked finally died away and morning dawned in our valley of death. The trusty dead trees we'd hung between had been more than stout enough despite their frail outwardly appearance. Most noteworthy was the sudden drop in temperature overnight, as the warm evening morphed into a cold chill during the small hours of the morning.
The Bob
The trail beyond Benchmark Wilderness Ranch is not what you'd expect. As the Divide becomes sharper and more picturesque, the CDT opts not for its usual lofty place where it typically follows the physical contour of the Divide itself, but instead it descends and follows the course of rivers far below. Not that it's a bad thing as far as walking is concerned…
A Birthday Ode to Ace
Four years ago, I wrote this post sick to my stomach over a tearful goodbye as Ace went home to our house in Seattle and back to work while I continued on my hike of the Pacific Crest Trail. Rereading it now, I can still feel my insides turning over seeing how broken hearted she was to say goodbye for what we both knew would be a long time.
A Tale of Fire
I'm on some kind of ride at the county fair, which one I'm not entirely sure. The Tilt-o-Whirl maybe, or perhaps the Scrambler. It might even be the giant swirling swing ride. When my eyes open, I don't see the lights of the midway though, only darkness. Turns out it was only partly a dream.
Thimbleberry Lane
Late yesterday afternoon while traversing the never-ending burn zone that is northern Montana, a bright sign appeared beside a trail junction. Dated one day before we'd left our last town stop in Lincoln, it detailed the location of a new forest fire burning in the wilderness only a couple of miles due west of the CDT.
Rookie Perspective #4: Marias Pass, the WetzWalds and Mt. Man’s Trailside Chat
We did it. We finished the Montana miles we set out to having arrived at Marias Pass on 9/4 (the same day as Mt. Man’s birthday). Quick aside: Can you believe it? He’s finally 40! It’s about time.
Full Circle
Here we go again. After all of the trials and tribulations, we’re back at the beginning. Just shy of 3 months ago, we left the highway at Targhee Pass and headed north into an uncertain future. Returning late this morning to that same pass outside the town of West Yellowstone and under the same signs we've now taken pictures with on three separate occasions…
The Snows of September
It's amazing how quickly things can turn. Mountains are fickle like that, especially in the “shoulder season”—that no man’s land beyond the heart of summer where autumn can so often confuse itself with early winter. Expecting the unexpected, and being prepared for just about anything is what hiking in shoulder season is all about.
Winter Wonderland
Come morning, it was the lulls between the wind I noticed most. Only seconds in length, they were still a new feature in the storm that had blanketed our little camp with 6 inches of snow and relentlessly buffeted our tarps with wind throughout the night. They also pointed to the last gasps of the storm as the sun supplanted the clouds even though the temperature had risen at best into the 20s.
Supervolcano
Strolling under a reborn sun, the snow only a fading memory, it's easy to forget until you hear a low hissing sound coming from a few feet to the side of the trail. Then a puff of steam coming from another spot. Then a small cauldron of bubbling, iridescent water peeks from behind a row of bushes.