Day 13

I slept well in my tent at the Woods Lake campground. But from the moment my eyes opened, my stomach grumbled with hunger. We were all out of food – Zach, Burgs, the Brits, Droobie. We scraped the bottoms of our food bags for scraps. But Burgs came through for us. The night before, he’d chatted with an older gentleman who supposed he could take us in the morning if we still needed a ride. So we waited until an appropriate morning hour and went in search of our ride.

Mark was a kind man. Without hesitation, he opened his truck bed to the 6 of us, though Sally, John, and I got lucky enough to sit in the cab with him. We set out for the long, bumpy ride to Augusta. As the tall mountains turned into sweeping meadows and plains, Mark shared a lot of history and Montana knowledge with us. He described how bear research worked in the Bob since his brother had participated in the terrifying task in his youth. He described the land ownerships surrounding the Bob and the types of cattle raised in the plains. He even gave us a run down of the political state of Montanas people and provided hefty Bison lore as part of the political riff raff. Apparently there is argument over bison migration through ranch pastures and diseases that affect the cows and pastures. But they used to breed bison with cows and they were hard to tame so they stopped breeding them.

Once we reached Augusta, we set up camp in the grass around the RV park and began our camp chores. I took an ice cold shower with half a bar of soap and a dabble of conditioner in the men’s room. I waited for our clothes to get clean while sweating it out in my rain jacket and pants, though the washer stalled 5 minutes in and then the other machines were taken. When our clothes finally completed a thorough wash cycle, we hung them to air dry in the chain link fence around the park – both to save money and because being hiker trash is fun. Then I resupplied and gagged when I saw the price. Again, I was thinking about how much I dislike being in town and the itch to hit the trail returned despite being off of it for only a few hours.

Finally, once laundry was done, the resupply price was paid, and the festivities we had come into town for were picking up, things began to turn around. The parade through town was full of local businesses and clubs with home-made floats from trailers and vans. Old cars rumbled down the street and each float or vehicle had a designated candy thrower. A bunch of hikers sat along the sidewalk outside of the grocery store and raised our hands up in the air each time a car drove by throwing candy. Some of us ran back and forth from our seat to the street to grab stray candy. Others of us waited patiently for those good candy throwers to shoot hard jolly ranchers and tootsie pops at our heads. I added a small supply of candy to my food bag following the parade.

As things began to wind down and move into the second phase of pre-rodeo day, a horse drawn carriage strode down the street and to our surprise, John and Sally – the Brits – were waving at us from the rear bench of the wagon.

The evening picked back up once the sun began to set. Hikers and towns people bar hopped up and down the mile long town road. A group of us watched locals dance, and quite expertly at that. We played corn hole and people watched until hiker midnight had long come and gone. When I finally retired to my tent, it wasn’t until 1am when I was finally able to fall asleep as the drunken yelling had finally ended by that hour.

Day 14

I felt stuck in Augusta. The mental pull between staying to see the rodeo and wanting to get back on trail was physically painful. We bought tickets for the rodeo but could give them to hikers coming in this afternoon. But also trying to find a ride out of town was a fruitless challenge.

Rocket, Hamburglar, and I toddled away the morning hours packing up camp and enjoying the company of new incoming hikers. Then we went into town with our things to find lunch and try to find a hitch. If we could find a hitch, we’d leave before the rodeo. We ran into Lemon, Matcha, and Blueprint – a veteran hiker who is hiking the CDT for his third time (I think). I asked him for some wisdom moving forward since the current greatest debate amongst hikers is over which line to take after Helena. I was hoping to take the Big Sky alternate, but for the same reasons I’d initially wanted to stay for the rodeo – to hang out with hiker friends – I felt unsure that taking such a big cut off would be socially satisfying. He said that the Big Sky alt would help me to hike through the highlights of the trail without having to worry too much about my timeline.  So really, the choice for me was between hiking with people or seeing as much of the trail as I could.

And even though I’d zeroed for the rodeo to hang out with people, I blurted out, “I really just want to see the highlights.” So there it was, I was going to do big sky. I’d come into the CDT knowing I was in it for the physical challenge and already I’d tried to steer my goals towards more social ventures. Sure it was fun but I wasn’t quite satisfied and in the spirit of trying to be true to my own goals, I needed to get back to the pursuit of the physical challenge.

I enjoyed the company for a bit longer, painted my nails purple with rocket and Burgs to signify that despite my goals, I’d still met and would meet worthy people on this trail, and then we headed to the rodeo. Ultimately, I was glad to have stayed for the rodeo and even more glad that Rocket snagged us a hitch with plenty of time to see the rodeo and still hike 7 miles away from town. A group of South African boys, and particularly their drunken friend they pre-apologized for before we met, were funny and we shared nerds gummy clusters. The people around us who offered us umbrellas for shade from the sun were so kind and interested in our endeavors. And when the cowboys hopped on the bucking broncos and effortlessly lassoed the calves, my jaw dropped in horror and awe. The accuracy and the danger was so impressive and I’ve quite literally never known a horse to jump so high.

Alas, we didn’t see the bull riding since Rocket had nabbed us a hitch to trail. But I wasn’t too upset, I’d seen enough to have content to digest what I’d witnessed for several days. But what I’d come to digest more thoroughly was the guy who gave us a ride. He was from Belgium but recently became a US citizen. Quite literally as soon as we’d gotten out of range of cell service, he began speaking of his flag burning anarchy days and how he’d once flipped his car driving down a road like the one we were on. My finger was over the SOS button of my Garmin. But ultimately, he was kind and harmless. Perhaps a bit of a lost soul seeking direction. And when he offered to share his 1000 page manifesto discussing the corruption of the Colorado government, I politely declined and offered to buy him a beer instead if we got to Helena by the 4th of July (where he’d be in the coming days). And with that, we parted ways and hiked into the fading light trying to find a flat spot to camp along a narrow stretch of trail bordered in by a river and steep canyon walls.

Day 15

I woke up to frost on the inside of my tent. Reluctantly, I knew today would be another yard sale lunch kind of day. I set off up the trail got turned around when I missed a critical trail junction and crossed the creek. I was sure I wasn’t supposed to cross, but all was better when I ran into chew toy. When I saw someone ahead of me, I three times said, “hey,” “hey there,” “hi”. And on the fourth attempt, she turned around and saw me. We hiked together until lunch and it was pleasant to have someone to converse with and catch up with. About a mile from lunch, there were a few stream crossing that I was confident I could cross without getting my feet wet, however, against my own advice, I trusted a wet log and before I could even put any weight on it, my feet were in the air and I was lying on my backpack on my back in a foot of water. I scrambled to get up, hopeful that my trash bag liner didn’t have any holes in it and wasn’t leaking. Had I been alone in that moment I probably would’ve cursed but since chew toy was there I brushed it off nonchalantly, and it was easier to forget that I had potentially wet gear in my bag, distracted by good conversation.

Somewhere along the way, Burgs caught up and then we caught up with Rocket who was sitting in the shade along a small stream. Before Rocket even pointed it out to us, I noticed the perfectly deep section of stream where one could pertly rest their body in the refreshing water. I immediately went for it ignoring the yellowish moss growing on the rocks within the water. I submerged myself up to my waist, sitting right in the water as it fell between the rocks and gave a small sigh of relief. The days were heating up and despite the frosty mornings, the few hours following lunch were hot enough to warrant a siesta. Though we discussed it a few times, at the end of the day, I could stand the idea of laying around in the middle of the day. Despite having many daylight hours to hike, I liked to keep moving. A siesta just wasn’t in the cards for me. But sitting in every river we crossed would be.

Just before I removed myself from the water, we heard footsteps. Samurai emerged from the tree line and in a moment of surprise, I shouted, “oh my gosh, Samurai!” He smiled and waved back just before he too took a dip in the river. Then Chew Toy walked up and did the same. It was a little river party.

Eventually, we had to pull away from the water and enter back into the hot sun. Thankfully, the trail meandered between trees offering intermittent reprieve from the heat. At the last stream crossing before the final climb of the day, Burgs and I ate dinner. It was becoming a thing to eat dinner before camp. If not to prevent bears from sniffing round our camp, it offered a chance to rest one last time before getting into bed and enough energy to get us the final few miles to camp and to set up camp at the end of each day.

However, even with bellies full of calories, the climbs were never easier. It was slow going to get to the top. But cresting the summit where few trees obstructed the endless expanse of mountainous views was well earned. And cheers from Rocket and Super Noodz helped as well. I collected water from the shallowest of streams trickling through two jumps in the mountain and then headed just a bit further to camp. Fortunately there was plenty of space for everyone. Unfortunately, most of the ground was covered in horse poop. I swept away the large clumps of dung while giggling to myself after muttering, “shittiest campsite I’ve ever seen.” Burgs stoped and stared at me blankly for a few moments before shaking his head and returning to setting up his tent. Not everyone can handle my humor, I guess.

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