Total Mileage: 252.6

After the cow-crap-covered pack incident and finishing out the week just south of Lima, I needed to push hard to make it to the Island Park post office on Wednesday before it closed at 4.

So I did a 41.4 to Taylor Mountain and did 25.6 by 3:45 to arrive at the post office which had my 9th pair of shoes. Took an hour to charge my stuff, ate a Cali chimichanga and kept going.

The next day I arrived in Yellowstone and hiked with 2 traveling nurses, “Moon Fall” and “Bodega.” We hiked and talked all the way to Old Faithful Village. Great humans!

From there I went another 10 miles and cowboy camped on the beach at Shoshone Lake. The next day I met “Hong Kong”, a great kid from San Fran rocking an External Frame Pack. Haven’t seen those since the 70’s, lol. We spent the next couple days hiking together. Awesome dude and we hiked to the pass and hitched into Dubois. He picked up the lunch tab and I decided to not shower or laundry and just resupply my food and get back on the trail.

At the grocery store I ran into “Chuckles” and “Frisky” a couple from back home I was hoping to see on the trail. I decided to hike out with them and take a leisurely afternoon. I Camped with them and got to bed before 10pm, which I hadn’t done in a while. I said my goodbyes and left for the trail at 4:45 am.

Everything was going relatively smooth until about 2pm when the dark clouds rolled in while I was going through a wide open meadow. Thunder, lightning and hail lingered right over the top of me and it took 40 minutes to get to the treeline and pitch my tent. I had been running to get out of it and once I got inside my tent, freezing and soaked, I passed out for 2 hours. When I woke up it was drizzling so I packed up and hiked another 3 hours before calling it a day.

What a week!

Total Mileage: 258

Sorry for the delay in posts. I’ve been sending it pretty hard and service has been very spotty.

This is a long one because I’m currently on a flat 113 mile section of the Red Desert on a road so I have nothing but time as I walk and write this.

Anyway, I did it again. I didn’t get enough food out of Anaconda. So 3 days into this 230+ mile section, I had to start rationing. Doing 40’s on 2,000 calories is not fun. Thankfully, in this section I would run into an incredible human from back home, “Stix”, who is crushing the CDT and getting her Triple Crown. (That means she’s hiked the Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail and Continental Divide Trail.) What makes her Triple Crown so impressive is that she’s a 10%er. Which means she doesn’t skip any miles of the trail. Very few hikers do this. 90% of people claiming to thru hike skip. She posts great pictures and videos so follow along with her @maxinemachine on Instagram. When we met up she wasn’t feeling too god and I was desperately low on food, so when she asked if I wanted to take some of hers, I played it off but inside I was beyond ecstatic! After a couple hours, sadly we went our separate ways. It helped to see a familiar face, It does get lonely sometimes. Just part of the mental challenge of the loop I guess.

Finishing the day with a 38.5, and making it to Bannock Pass at 6:30pm the next evening, I did the Anaconda to Leadore segment of 233 miles in 5 days 8 hours and 30 minutes. A trail angle named Randy picked me up right on time at Bannock Pass and got me into town just before the store closed and I could stuff my face with some refined sugar and processed goodness. Stayed at a campground down the street, somehow fried my GoPro by charging it too long overnight. I sent it to Dallas to handle. Until then just pics unfortunately.

I also received a Birthday care package from “Mom Cut” a sweat heart of a person I met on the PCT this year. I had all kinds of things including a mini peach pie with a candle. Thank you!!

Randy was right on time and I was able to get back to the trail at 10:30am. Full resupply with a goal to get to Island Park, ID in under 5 days. A 180 mile section. Tough however with a lot of elevation gain, ridge climbs up, up, up then down, down, down. Water was tough with not a lot of options and those hoofed 😈 we’re everywhere, forcing me to to treat all sources except springs.

My birthday on the 14 was more eventful than I wanted it to be. I was in good spirits after hitting 4,000 miles a couple days before. Blasting out of camp while it was still dark I was using my headlamp. Once it got light enough I didn’t notice it was still on and at some point it fell off my head without me noticing. I hiked a mile back looking for it with no luck and I knew this would come back to burn me. I just didn’t think it would be the way that it did.

Open meadows, some roads, and for the most part, an easy day. By 9:30 it was almost dark and I was at 39.8 miles. Side-hilling through hoofed devil country I finally called it. Plopped my pack down and just cowboy camped under the stars. The night was clear. At 1:30am I heard thunder and lightning, it was coming towards me and being this exposed gave me flashbacks from Yellowstone from last year. (See week 14 or 15 from GWL 2021 for that story) I quickly stuffed everything into the large pouch on the outside of my pack and hiked half a mile down lower to safety and just crashed right there. The next morning when I came around I looked at my packs and noticed that last night in the dark without my head lamp, I had dropped my pack into a fresh cow pie and it had smushed through the pouch. In the storm I had stuffed a lot of my gear into that pouch so everything was covered in cow shit. Happy Birthday to me!

Total Mileage:  249

Made it to High Divide Outfitters, owned by David Libby. The greatest little gear shop in the world!

He has everything a Hiker could want and he’s right on the trail! It sits 200 miles beyond my halfway point at Stemple Pass, so for me it was a perfect time to make some gear adjustments. New battery packs, headlamp, shoes, sun hoodie, long handle spork, body glide, trash compactor bag, gallon Ziplock and some food to get me to Helena.

A couple long 15 plus mile stretches with no water. To do the 215 miles in just over 5 days to High Divide, I had a couple massive days, pulling 40 plus with over 9,000 feet of elevation gain each day.

Unfortunately, I again beat my packages to Helena and was forced to resupply at a gas station. I finally got back on the trail late at 1:30 pm. I was able to squeak out a 25.2 followed by a 42.1 finishing just before Anaconda.

Mcdonald’s hit the spot, the grocery store had what I needed, and I set out of there at 10am Sunday morning heading out on a long road walk before going up and over a couple passes, most notably Storm Lake Pass, Cutaway Pass and Rainbow Pass.

Tough but fun hiking 🥾 and feeling healthy and good and right on my pace.

Total Mileage: 269.9

After being kinda miffed about not getting my resupply boxes and knowing I now had another 300-plus miles to hike on blown out shoes, I took off from Polebridge and made it to the Ranger station. I picked aggressive distances between camps and headed in. It felt great to reach the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) on day 98.

Heading south now, I had a lot of mosquitoes and overgrown trail to deal with. Once I hiked into the middle of the park the trail conditions and maintenance were pristine. One night I could make my distance of 49 miles, so at 43 I just laid my sleeping pad on the trail and slept right there.

Hiked up and over Triple Divide Pass and by 6pm, arrived at Two-medicine campground. Crushed some snacks and talked with some dudes I had seen the day before struggling to get to the parking lot after a long day hike. Afterwards, I hiked almost until I was to East Glacier Village. I heard a huge animal jump into the river as I passed by. Guessing it was a grizzly.

After getting into East Glacier, I beat my resupply box AGAIN and had to buy my food for the next stretch. After dealing with a 5 mile blow-down section out of Marias Pass, I realized I wouldn’t have enough food and was contemplating having to hitch 30 miles into Augusta.

Luckily, in the Bob Marshal Wilderness I met some weekend hikers. One had a 100 liter pack and I knew he had some extra food. Jonathan and Melissa hooked me up with some Mountain House Meals and some other goodies and an hour later, I met another couple, Dito and Chantelle, who gave me even more food. This would be enough to get me to my next stop.

After a cruiser section through the Bob’s and some more blow downs near Cigarette Creek Trail, it rained for an hour. It felt nice, being that it was the first time in a month since I’d gotten any precipitation. I finished the week out with a solid 42.7 mile day.