Thursday, July 22, 2004
Today Didn’t Happen, For a Reason
07/22/04
When I woke up this morning, the first thing I thought about, after peeing, was getting in the hot tub. I love to get into hot water when I'm still half asleep. Alas, the tub enclosure was locked, so I padded my way back to the room through the cold morning and slipped back into bed.
We had said yesterday that ideally we'd be at the post office when it opened at 8:30. I think we were still at breakfast at 8:30. And the room was buried in three pack explosions: None of us had made any progress toward packing.
Then, somehow, it was lunch time. So, we had lunch, then it was 2. We finally started hitching around 3, but it could have been later.
What were we doing? Well, I was trying to get out journal entries from July 10, 11 & 12. I'm so behind, as you know.
We made it back to Chief Joseph Pass in two rides. When we arrived, Apple Pie was in a bad mood from an earlier misunderstanding. As I wandered around the entrance to the cross-country ski areas (where we'd met Ed and Gordon), I noticed the forefoot of a deer, cleanly severed at the first leg joint, perhaps the knee, maybe the ankle. I picked it up with a rock and a piece of bark and offered it to her with the hopes that it would make her laugh. It did.
We began hiking today knowing that we'd be hop scotching between Montana and Idaho as we walked the Divide for the next many miles.
Our first goal was a spring that several people had mentioned that we not miss.
We missed it, I think because we were traveling so fast. We looked for it after we'd passed it. Spur eventually found it, but then we discovered that nobody needed water for dinner, so we ate.
During dinner, the weather began to build. The thunder we'd been hearing all afternoon grew closer and louder, as did the dark gray clouds which had been so pretty in the distance. Well, the clouds grew just closer, not louder. I've never seen a loud grey.
The clouds darkened the day and made the lightning flashes visible, but the thunder was still startling in its loudness and nearness.
Soon hail the size of large peas was falling, but it wasn't too heavy. The rain was light too. Neither interfered with our dinner, a detail for which I am thankful.
We were focused on finding the spring before dinner that we forgot the trail took a sharp left. We continued along the dirt road we left before dinner. It climbed a bit, then led to a place with a great vista made even more spectacular by the clouds of the now-breaking up storm and the setting sun. It was one of the best visual moments of the trip. The light was spectacular, the clouds ranged from dark grey to white, and the warm horizontal evening light and the clouds combined to make a great hat on the landscape. Oh, and there was a rainbow and a peculiar and dramatic cloud formation.
Spur and Apple Pie continued to take in the view as I scouted for the trail, which seemed to peter out. Suddenly it occurred to me, looking at the foundation for a removed watch tower, that we were on Anderson Mountain, and had missed the turn. None of us would have purposely come up here, but none of us would have missed it either. I know I was happy for our error.
So we hiked back to the place we had dinner, which was on the trail we should have stayed on. Hiking this evening was great. We had scenic views to the west, south, and east. Of particular note were the number of mariposa lilies in bloom. That's not quite the name. They have three white pedals with a burgundy eye in the middle.
We are camped in trees on the Divide near a place with a great old Divide Way sign and promise of water nearby.
I'm happy to be sleeping out.
