Brewster - Continental Divide Trail Journal - 2009

Rabbit!

Taking a zero day today in Lima -- this is the last trail town for me in Montana, and as much as I've enjoyed Montana, it will be nice to be in Wyoming soon. The last few days my stomach has been a bit unhappy, so it was good to have the rest today. Hopefully things will be good when I get back on the trail tomorrow with my spiffy new shoes. That said, the last couple hundred miles have been really nice, if a bit strenuous. There's been a lot of walking right on the divide, much of it in open grassland. From here it's only 110 miles to Old Faithful, in Yellowstone, which will put me in Wyoming, and is actually the place that I first saw the CDT, when I did a ski tour from there while visiting Old Buffalo (a friend from the Appalachian Trail) last year. Easier walking is also rumored to be ahead, so that will be a welcome change - the trail in southern Montana has lived up to its reputation as a roller coaster (steep ups and downs). Earlier today, we met a hiker, Zen Quake, who lost his pack about 20 miles out of town, and had spent the last 3 days trying to find it. He got lost (pretty easy to do around here) towards the end of a hiking day, then put down his pack, had a rest, and did a bit of walking around to see if he could find the trail. That didn't take too long, but once he'd found the trail, he couldn't find his pack, so he was stuck in the woods with basically just what he was wearing. He spent a couple very cold, hungry nights, kept looking for the pack, and finally hiked out here with nothing. He's alright now (though has no gear, ID, money, etc...), but it is crazy how something so simple could go so wrong. I'm going to think twice before leaving my pack anywhere now...

If any of you are looking for more detail than my occasional "still alive" posts, you should check out Freefall's journal. As I've camped with him every night of the trail thus far, you should get a very good idea of what I'm up to. Given how much time he spends writing the thing, I'm sure it's very detailed (I haven't actually read it myself yet). Anyway, you can find it at http://trailjournals.com/cdt2009

I hope all is well on the home front.
I may not update for a while, as I'm going to be trying to make good time from here to meet up with the HMC Wind Rivers trip. Shouldn't be too bad, but it means I'm not going to be stopping in any towns that aren't right on the trail for maybe 350 miles, and I'll hopefully just be in and out of those.

Entry 6 of 7
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