South Pass City to Rawlins (The Red Desert/Great Basin)

A little backstory is needed: last week in Dubois I needed a ride back to the trailhead. Hitchhiking is illegal in Dubois city limits, so, rather than stick out my thumb, I took over a table in a coffee shop and started loudly talking about my trip to everyone who walked in in the hopes that someone would offer me a ride.

My new normal

Even though I’d done some backpacking before the CDT, I had a romanticized notion of what my days on this hike would look like. Now that I’m two months in, I have settled into a routine that is both demanding and comforting.

Dubois to South Pass City (The Wind River Range)

First, let me say that I had a great time in Dubois. The post office lost my box (with my food and maps) so I double-zeroed there to rest and regroup. While in town, I was invited to join another family’s reunion and got a free potluck dinner, and met another family whose 5 and 7 year-old boys taught me how to lasso cattle. Fun times.

Yellowstone to Dubois

My family packed me lunch on my first day out in Yellowstone. I ate it in front of Mystic Falls.

My family dropped me off in Yellowstone, which is pretty flat and uninteresting mountain-wise (at least on the west side), but the steam rising out of the ground makes for some surreal hiking. I found one place called witch creek (a steaming creek fed by hot springs) where I could safely get in for a nice soak.

4 Days off-Trail with my Family!

Lower falls and the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

A Hot Spring at Yellowstone

Old Faithful

Chill Bison

Leadore to Lima

On Cottonwood Peak

Sula to Leadore

Swiss Smores

Yard Sale at Lemhi Pass: Hiker trash drying out our tents in the sun during a lunch break

Leadore: population 100

Butte to Sula

The Continental Divide takes a big jog to the East around Butte and then another big jog West to the Anaconda-Pintner Mountains. Many CDT hikers took the “Anaconda Cutoff” (a more direct southern route that bypasses Butte). On the first day out of Butte, because we all stayed for the festival, I ended up hiking with a pretty huge group of thru-hikers (“The Butte Crew”: Action, Short Stack, Hikerbox, Heartbreaker, Memphis, Andy, Leah, and myself). They’re all great people hiking at about the same pace and we had several group-camps with fires for the first few nights out of Butte.

Kicking it in the Butte

My ankles were looking much better after getting my compression socks and resting a day, but I wasn’t upset to learn that Action and Heather wanted to spend a few zeros in town too. They brought along a few friends we’d met on trail and I shared my hotel room that night with 3 other smelly hikers, which made it much more affordable: Hikerbox & Heartbreaker (who were hiking the CDT immediately after finishing the Arizona trail) and Memphis. The four of us made the most of our posh hotel and went down to use the hot tub and sauna in our underwear.