Sunday, July 11, 2004
Has Anyone Seen My Hike?
07/11/04
What a long day. It did not rain on me last night, and I did not need to invade the Otter's space during the night. My hopes of an early start were, as usual, wrapped in a warm sleeping bag and muffled until it wasn't such an early start.
I was on the trail by 7AM. Plus, there's also Apple Pie's penchant for a late start. Surely I can cover those extra miles and meet up with them about the time they get there. "There" is Mullan Pass, the place the alternate route and the main CDT rejoin.
I quickly left the Otter behind, setting a pace that takes no prisoners. I plow through my morning, stopping occasionally to figure out where I am. There's an important turn to make, and there are lots of junctions, only some of them signed. The trails also come in at strange angles, which sometimes helps, sometimes not.
I have three sources of information to find this turn: The Wolf guidebook descriptions, Jonathan's maps, and the GPS. I usually use the maps. They provide the most direct way of finding my way. The GPS comes out next. It tells me my position in relation to contour lines or other landmarks that I might be able to match up with on the map. Last comes the guidebook, unless I'm in a tricky area, but that won't come until later in the day. Through the morning, I'd been using the map, looking for features in the landscape that corresponded to the distinctive sideways sharp “V” the trail took.
For some reason, as I grew close, I chose to look at the guidebook for a change.
Luckily, a pair of angels came along on their way to their cabin in the woods.
I approached the large vehicle and asked, "Do you know where you are, and if so, can you show me on this map?" They knew the area well and soon got me oriented on the map.
I mostly have room in my brain for one detail. Of course, that's a lie, but I use it as an excuse sometimes. This was one of those times. Had I been looking at the map instead of the guidebook, I might have remembered that I was looking for Road 622, or something like that. As soon as the woman hears that I was going to Mullen Pass, she said, "You need to take Road 622," and as she did, I recalled that I'd just been stared down by cows at the beginning of Road 622.
It was literally two stone throws away, back the way I came. I thanked them, and they drove off, honking as promised when the passed the junction, which was about 30 seconds later.
Soon I was passing through the cows and calves that had stared me down earlier, plus some neighbors, which included a particularly jittery one that ran in my direction of travel to escape me. Cows are weird because they are half wild and half domestic, kind of like football fans.
I'd finally found the trail, the turning point to hooking back up with Spur and Apple Pie. I walked about 100 yards and came to an un-signed fork. I went through the whole route-finding routine again. I took the fork to the right and had a walk along a fairly level jeep road. I made my way around and up, passing under power transmission lines which were inaccurately drawn on the map. Soon I reached the Divide which offered great views. I settled into another good pace.
At some point, I looked ahead and noticed something that, in the end, was frustrating: the Otter was hiking about 30 minutes ahead. How did he get so far ahead? I wasn't off trail very long, maybe 10 minutes. He'd found a different route, a shortcut, and taken it. Ugh. I felt that if the Otter were ahead, I wasn't going fast enough.
I redoubled my focus and pace, and gained on the Otter. I came across him in an opening in the lodgepole forest we'd entered. He already had a line up, and he was drying his stuff out. I ate one snack and moved along.
One of the details of this route was water: there wasn't much. I carried my capacity, 2.8 liters. Otter had a lot more, but was more concerned than I about where the next source would be.
I set off on the road, aware of my care-free attitude about the water. And, wouldn't you know it: Soon I saw a parked truck. I walked up and met Brad, who was filling his water bladder. He'd slept there in his truck and was prepping to continue his hike & bike of the Montana CDT as a weekend warrior.
He had lots of water and let me fill my bladder. I was released from my concern for water for the time being, and had a nice chat with him.
I began a long descent,which I thought would never end, toward Mullen Pass. I was hungry, but didn't want to stop 'till I'd caught up with Spur and Apple Pie.
I finally arrived at Mullen Pass at 12:30, a little frustrated at the time it took me to get those miles done.
I quickly found trail mail entitled, "Where's My Cupcake?"
They'd waited 2 hours for me there and left at 11. Ugh. They did leave a plan:
They were going into Elliston to let me catch up. Earlier, we'd decided to skip Elliston. I had enough food to skip the resupply box waiting there for me, and we reconfirmed our commitment to hike together so I could pass by the maps for the next section.
I found a place to sort of duck out of the wind, ate a quick lunch, and was soon on my way. For some reason, staying on-trail between Mullen Pass and Priest
Pass seemed to require constant vigilance. The guidebook gave landmarks every tenth of a mile, and they were sometimes subtle.
I also got some great sights. At one point the trail is an old narrow-gauge railway bed. Following along this tread led to a dilapidated trestle. This once-grand structure, with its rough-hewn, over-sized timbers, showed the effect of time, weather and gravity. Nature was taking over. A tree even grew up through the middle.
After a traverse of a lovely grassy hillside with views, I arrived at Priest Pass to witness a family unloading ATVs for a day of loud, dangerous recreation. And no hikers.
I then hiked through mature forest sections toward McDonald Pass. The trail ended up on a peak with lots of transmission equipment and transitioned to the access road for the towers on the hill. The road finally ended near McDonald Pass, but I still had a walk up the four-lane freeway to the actual pass. The freeway shoulder was the trail, so I couldn't hitch it. When I got to the top, I saw Apple Pie & Spur hitching. Apple Pie came running toward me. They'd been trying get a ride for an hour and twenty minutes with no luck. We began to jabber to get caught up on what happened and who was where when, and I joined the hitch. We soon got a ride in the back of a pickup.
Elliston is small. The Last Chance hotel had four rooms, and they were all booked so we moved on to Stoner's Last Chance saloon. The nearly-full bar fell silent as we entered the dark, smoke-filled establishment. We ordered what we could from the bar menu. We found out the store, the third and final business (other than the PO) in Elliston, was closing in 10 minutes, so we headed over for snacks and supplemental food.
The guy at the hotel gave us a ride back up to the pass.
We headed up to a vista point, took a short set of stairs down to the trail, and headed off to see more of the Continental Divide.
We hiked in a few miles and set up an early camp.
Spur kicked back against a burned tree and the warm light of the setting sun made its way through the trees lighting his face. He looked so content and at home. What a great guy.
I'm sleeping out and my personal forecast is that it will not rain tonight.
