Welp, Glacier didn’t go the way that we planned. The start went absolutely perfectly, a nice relatively flat nine miles from the northern terminus. Day two was our first pass, absolutely beautiful and I did it with Katherine and Thorbjörn which was a lot of fun. We enjoyed making games out of calling out for bears. Then Katherine and Thorbjörn went ahead to to Many Glacier while I stayed behind with my group consisting of Deferred, Hamburgler, and Samurai. Day three was another beautiful day into Many Glacier when things started to go wrong.
First I ended up going down the wrong path and adding on an additional three miles. Then when I finally got into camp I was the only one there despite being the last person to start… Turns out Samurai also went the wrong way and Deferred and Hamburgler hitched into town to get Hamburgler more food since he’d had issues with a lot of his gear being sent to the wrong airport when he flew in. Oh, but only if that had been all. No, we go into the Many Glacier hotel and learn that the possible snow on Sunday has now been moved up to Saturday and that Friday was going to be really cold and rainy. So we come up with a plan. Skip the next day on pur permit and push on ahead to join Thorbjörn and Katherine and a few other CDT hikers with room on their permits so that we could hopefully get through the park before the snow hit… Fourteen hours, a pass, and thirty miles later we’ve joined them and are all set up to do twenty five miles the next day over two passes.
First though, trail magic! We met a group of three — a father and two sons — who packed in skillets and a few steaks to eat at the campsite. One of which was given to Deferred, Hamburgler, and I to share. Sorry Dad but after 30 miles that was the best steak I’ve ever had in my entire life.
Anyway, we wake up at 4am to try to beat the rain over the first pass which we successfully did but by the time I was down the pass, still facing another 13 miles and 2600 feet of elevation I decided that I was too tired to continue on with risking rolling an ankle in the rain or just get an overuse injury. So I bailed off on a four mile side trail to get picked up and brought back to the hostel (thanks dad).
So now here I am, writing this the day after I got off trail and hoping that the snow tonight doesn’t fully sock in the passes. Which is highly possible considering that it could drop 12 inches above 6000ft. Luckily though there are options. The ten miles from two medicine campground to East Glacier is easily slackpackable as is the first 15 miles of the Bob Marshal Wilderness also known as the Bob. So I have a few options while any snow melts but the good news is that it is still early. People are still showing up and they still will be for a while now so I have options.
Now, it wasn’t all bad. 27 miles into the the 30 mile day I saw an absolutely beautiful fox that really picked me up for those last three miles. Additionally, while the weather was cold yesterday and the pass was actually completely covered in a cloud it gave me some one of my favorite sights so far of the valley from halfway down the pass as the clouds covered the tops of the mountains. So without further adu, a photo dump.
CDT Blog 