My last days on the CDT for the year. Mixed emotions. One last bodily ailment. Celebration and reflection in Silver City. Thank you for your support. Elevated, over and out.
Continue reading Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, NM to Silver City, NM
Road walking, road walking, road walking. IT band issues. The *spectacular* Middle Fork of the Gila River. Water walking, water walking, water walking. Busted in the buff! Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument.
Continue reading Pie Town, NM to Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, NM
Picking my way through a giant lava flow. Camping at cliff’s edge on a mesa. Lots of road walking. Uber can’t beat 50c for 20 miles. A pie-eating, crazy-averting and very quirky experience in Pie Town.
100 miles through breathtaking desert landscapes. Water has become a scarce commodity. Summiting Mount Taylor. It’s hot and the spiders are big!
A short 50 mile stretch through the Rio Chama and San Pedro Wilderness areas. My first tarantula. A serene morning camped in a meadow. Do they breed dinosaurs in Cuba?
Wolves howling, coyotes yipping, elk screaming, owls hooting, rifle hunters shooting, a full moon, Ghost Ranch and not a single person anywhere this whole stretch, it must be Halloween and this is the CDT’s haunted house? Horse riding through Georgia O’Keeffe country. Loving the warmer temperatures in New Mexico!
Leadville, a roadtrip and Pagosa Springs. The beautiful South San Juan mountains. Snow detour. Snow ass-kicking. It’s really cold. Where is this damn trail? Coolest trail to town ride yet!
Continue reading Wolf Creek Pass (Pagosa Springs, CO) to Cumbres Pass (Chama, NM)
Beautiful Colorado! Two 14’ers. 10 summits. Sketchy ridgeline scrambling. Epic views. Ski resort row. Fall colors everywhere. Snow in the mountains, again.
Continue reading Berthoud Pass, CO to Tennessee Pass, CO… via lots of ski towns!
Lakeside hiking. Indian Peaks Wilderness and The High Lonesome Trail. Bailing from a snow storm down to Winter Park. This was a really short stretch…
Rabbit Ears Range. Never Summer Wilderness. Rocky Mountain National Park- wow! Stalked by a mountain lion? Grand Lake ice cream binge.
1000 miles and a thank you. Change of plan. A roadtrip. Steamboat Springs, Colorado! What’s next.
140 miles through gorgeous Wyoming! Yellowstone National Park. Snake River Valley. Whiskey with Hojo! The Parting of the Waters. A creepy cowboy. Victory over a tree. Green River Lakes.
Continue reading Yellowstone National Park (Old Faithful, WY) to Green River Lakes (Pinedale, WY)
800 and something miles down and I’ve finally made it to Wyoming! Centennial Mountains. A sheep experiment. Mack’s Inn. Yellowstone National Park.
100 miles. A roller coaster. A can of Coke. It’s really hot and dry! Am I nearly in Wyoming?
Continue reading Bannock Pass to 1-15 (Leadore, Idaho to Lima, Montana)
130 miles along the Montana-Idaho border in the Beaverhead (Montana) and Salmon (Idaho) mountains. Incredible vistas. Victory over thunderstoms. Body ailments continue. Passed my 600 mile mark. Rest in small town Idaho.
Continue reading Montanaho! (Chief Joseph Pass to Bannock Pass)
A cross between Little Cottonwood Canyon and the Uintas, the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness is totally incredible! 20,000ft of ascent and descent. 90 mountain miles. Wildflowers galore. The Idaho border! Trip odometer just shy of 500 miles. Great stretch, except the return of the blisters.
Continue reading Anaconda Pintler Wilderness (Anaconda to Darby)
50 miles in the Helena and Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forests. Big Sky Country. Amazing trail magic. A remorseless confession. 400 miles down!
Continue reading McDonald Pass to Four Corners (Helena to Anaconda)
65 miles. My first CDT cows! Remote road walking. Longer water carries. Private property to navigate through and around. My feet are now too big for my shoes.
Continue reading Rogers Pass to McDonald Pass (Lincoln to Helena)
An action packed 60 miles in the Scapegoat Wilderness. Incredibly scenic ridgeline walking. A grueling 18 hour, 33 miles day out-walking the arrival of a big storm. Navigating in dark. Give me back the bears, lightning is a thousand times more terrifying!
Continue reading Scapegoat Wilderness (Benchmark Ranch to Rogers Pass)
115 miles of total remoteness, the Chinese Wall, blister hell, blow-downs, thousands of stream crossings and a resupply at Benchmark Ranch.
Continue reading The Bob Marshall Wilderness (Marias Pass to Benchmark Ranch)
Well, I’ve hiked the length of Glacier National Park! The 70 miles from Many Glacier to East Glacier were certainly adventure packed: mountain passes with dramatic views, two super scary Grizzly encounters, getting stuck in a rain/wind storm on Triple Divide Pass and crossing snow on Pitamakan Pass. Continue reading Many Glacier to East Glacier
Wow. Probably all I need to say. Glacier National Park is simply stunning. The first 30 miles of the CDT was filled with fields of wild flowers, huge alpine lakes, massive jagged mountains and great trail. The adventure has finally began!
East Glacier Park to Marias Pass
16 miles
While I haven’t officially started the CDT yet, today I did hike a 16 mile section of trail from East Glacier up to Marias Pass, the pass I crossed coming in on the train yesterday. There’s a few reasons for doing this pre-hike: there’s a brutal cold snap sitting over Montana for a couple more days making the high country a tad unappealing; there’s still quite a bit of snow up high on the passes with some fresh falling yesterday; but mostly it’s so that when I do the 135 mile segment south of East Glacier in a couple of weeks it’ll only be 120 miles as I’ll skip ahead to Marias Pass and start from there. Details aside, I started my CDT hike today, although i’ll reserve the celebration for when I start hiking south from the Canadian border later in the week.
It’s finally time, time to start my journey on the Continental Divide Trail. I’m writing from East Glacier Park, Montana, the kind of town where kids ride their bike down the middle of the street with an unleashed dog happily prancing along and cars stop to let them pass, huckleberry everything is sold at the few shops and restaurants there are and the world’s largest purple spoon is on display as you enter the town, that’s right, largest purple spoon.
After hearing the news that my hike on the Continental Divide Trail was over for the summer, I jumped on a plane to Australia and surprised my parents by arriving at their house unannounced. They were pretty shocked because I’d talked to them about 30 hours earlier from New Mexico and had told them I was headed back home to Salt Lake City. Ha!
