Part Sixteen

     June 23 - 25                           South of Butte, MT                         (Go to Pt 1)

We headed south out of Butte carrying 17 days’ worth of provisions and now that canned meats had replaced the majority of our freeze dried meals, the loads were uncomfortably heavy again. ​

As we branched off the graveled road of Route 10 to climb up into the foothills, looking to connect with the Divide, it is important to make note of what we were carrying for maps, the sole source of our orientation and navigation.

​In all of our misguided insistence on taking ‘the strictest line’ of the Divide, we had purchased, in advance of the trip, detailed, USGS 24,000 series, topo maps covering the Continental Divide’s ridgeline and terrain immediately adjacent, which is what we now carried.  The only problem with this narrow approach to navigation was that, at times, 

Click on map for a larger image

wandering even a mile or so astray of the Continental Divide’s ridge could, and did, put us off our detailed, topo maps. 

The inevitability of this happening had come up during the planning stages so, as back-up, we had supplemented the 24,000 scale maps with small scale, 250,000 series topo maps that offered us a big-picture view of the overall terrain but little, if any, detail.  

Then, if all else failed, we also carried Forest Service maps which showed Forest Service roads and trails but did not show topography or relevant elevations and were pretty much being carried along as our preferred choice of fire starter material and emergency tp.  

Well, we weren’t even seven miles south of Butte before we had to rely on a 250,000 series map for directions only to discover our orienteering skills wholly inadequate to navigate cross-country bushwhacking with a 250,000 series topo map. 

To compound the problem, we had become disorientated in an area where the terrain features were indistinct, each blending with every other nondescript gully, gulch, meadow and crest of high ground that spider-webbed around the landscape.  We wandered around all afternoon and finally just took a westerly bearing and held to it, knowing that, eventually, we’d hit a road.

​By late afternoon we had crossed over the gravel roadway of Route 2 and were camped in an open meadow along the meandering Blacktail Creek.  We had a long way to go to reach Idaho and, straight-up, we didn’t have enough supplies, ergo time, to spend on further wandering and gambling with our feeble orienteering skills through these nondescript woods, electing the following day to bail-out down a road to Herman Gulch, ending the afternoon with our camp a short ways up the Two-Bit Creek valley. 

Camp at Two-Bit Gultch

The next morning we worked our way up through the valley into open forests and meadows with the pines thinning out to grow only in clusters across the meadowy grasslands of  the upper valley.  It was the kind of Montana, high-chaparral countryside where the only thing missing was John Wayne and his posse of lawmen thundering over the ridge in a dust cloud.

I had started the morning with one quart of water and as we took a break at the top of the valley it dawned on me that we weren’t going to see water for another twelve miles. I glanced up at the blazing sun and then down at my half empty water bottle, which exhibited no illusion of being ‘half full’.

We climbed out of the valley then descended the four miles down from the ridge into the hot, bone-dust dry, Divide Creek valley, hitting this baked out basin with near-empty canteens. The seven mile crossing was an endless, withering affair under a sun which, by the forth mile, had become crushingly intense. 

The green woods of the western foothills appeared as a mirage, shimmering through the heat waves that rose up from the kiln baked earth. Our progress toward that mirage inched closer so slowly that it seemed as if we must be walking in slow motion with the salvation of shade and water at the western edge of the basin refusing to come any closer. 

It should probably be mentioned here that we had run into another, unexpected challenge while hiking south from Butte, range cattle. Huge tracks of Forest Service land become summer grazing grounds for sheep and cattle and south of Butte in 1977, it was cattle country. 

I’d seen cattle country before, from behind a car windshield, but I’d never tried to walk through the middle of a ranging herd of cows before. Craig and I knew nothing about the nature of these roaming bovines other than what we observed on our first encounter, which was that they got real skittish, real fast which instantly created the tendency for us to get all skittish in panicked response. 

The first time we broke out of the woods into a pasture of cattle, we figured we’d just mosey our way through the herd at a casual pace but were quickly met by an agitated and visibly disturbed, mob of cows.  As we ventured further out into the herd, they suddenly seemed on the verge of being provoked into a fulminating stampede, at least that’s what it looked like to us, so we backed-off to reassess.  

Again at the edge of the woods, we decided the only prudent thing to do, now that these evil beasts had thoroughly scared the shit out of us, was to skirt around the herd, turning a ten minute walk across the meadow into a circuitous, roundabout  forty five minutes.  I’m sure a Montana cowboy would have laughed his ass off watching us cower our way around that pasture.

So it was, that after crossing the parched Divide Creek valley in hopes of a quick path to water, we found instead a huge, fenced-in pasture of bulls standing between us and the creek.      

As we watched the bulls grazing out in the meadow, I also took notice of an old, leeward listing barn with no barn doors, standing out in the middle of the pasture. Then I looked up and down the fence line and saw that the fence trailed off, far into the distance in both directions. 

Well, at this juncture I really had no patience left for looking at possible ways around the pasture, I was thirsty enough to risk ‘running with the bulls’ but Craig, sporting his flaming-red t-shirt, wasn’t so sure about it, so we took another moment to reassess the situation. 

The pasture was huge and we only counted 7 or 8 bulls scattered about in various spots and none of them were really all that close so, finally, with water singing a deafening siren-song in my head, I said “fuck-it” and climbed over the fence, immediately turning my focus on that solitary barn out in the middle of the pasture. 

Craig would have preferred we at least check the map for an alternative before carelessly poking this hornet’s nest but I was over the fence before he could wrest the map from my grasp.  

Reluctantly following suit, Craig climbed over the fence but waited to leave some space between the two of us with his strategy being, if I was far enough ahead I would become the bulls’ first target of interest when they inevitably got wise to our trespassing on their turf.  An admirable strategy considering once we climbed into that bull-pen it was undeniably every man for himself. 

As expected, we went unnoticed the first bit out into the pasture but at the point where we were completely exposed, halfway between the fence and the barn, the bulls became aware of strangers in their midst.  

Most of them were a ways off and just stood and watched as we methodically worked our way across the meadow but one big bull, not far from the barn, turned and, very slowly, started walking in our direction.  

We both saw this dangerous behavior immediately and picked up the pace with the swift realization that we needed to reach that barn before that bull decided to go berserk. If the bull did came after us, I was convinced we’d find protection inside the barn.  

I kept glancing over at the bull as he continued to walk towards us and then, sure as shit, just before we got to the barn that giant, badass bull decided to charge.

The second I saw the bull make a break for us I got hit by a jolt of adrenaline that shot me twenty yards or so through the open end of the barn where my hopes of finding safety inside were instantly dashed as there was absolutely nothing in the barn; no loft, no rope hanging from the ceiling, no crates or machinery to hide behind, no hay bales, nothing - the building was stone-cold empty and I could hear the bull’s hooves pounding toward me just beyond the door. 

The other end of the barn was also open so, without missing a step, I bolted pell-mell through to the other end and dove behind the outside wall. I could hear commotion inside the barn then Craig flew around the corner to the other side of the door.  

We could hear the bull stomping around inside the barn then, slowly, the hoof stomping went quiet. Apparently satisfied the intruders had been driven off, the bull turned and walked out the same way he’d stormed in. 

Craig peeked around the corner and saw that the bull was still milling about on the other side of the barn, then he looked over at me, shrugging ‘what now?’ From the barn, the creek was still several hundred yards off, through open pasture, and that bull continued to loiter about not more than 200 feet away.  

​Craig kept peering around the side of the barn, waiting for the beast to back-off until, finally, the bull went back to grazing and we, in a very calm manner, using the barn as a screen between us and the bull, made double-time for the Cottonwoods and Willows bordering the creek. ​

We broke through the woods craving cool, clear water in the worst kind of way but when I finally got down to the creek with my dust-dry water bottle and tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, I could hardly believe the Aqua Gods could be so cruel .  

What we found instead of water was a muddy mess of murky, putrid, idly standing scum.  Both riverbanks had been trampled into churned-up muck and there were cow splats all over the streambed and riverbanks.

​As I recall, this was before water filtration systems were available for extensive, lightweight, field use so, needless to say, we didn’t have one and this creek was our source of drinking water, unfiltered. 

Click on map for a larger image

What we did have for ‘water purification’ were these disgusting iodine tablets that turned your mouth orange and made everything that followed them taste terrible. However, we both agreed that this cow sewage was beyond iodine treatment and started to wander up valley in search of at least treatable water if not decent water.  

We continued up stream for another forty minutes or so on this pocked-out, splat covered, dirty, smelly, fly-infested, cattle road to near the ‘headwaters’ of this miserable, dribbling flow and then were reduced to collecting water in a cup from the cleanest dribble we could find, knowing full well it was still too filthy to drink but unable to refrain from filling a water bottle anyway, just to see what it looked like. Not surprisingly, It looked like shit.  

​And, of course, we knew to boil the water first before drinking it but, at this point, I was just too thirsty to give a cow-shit, leaving Craig to grimace in disgust as he watched me drop two iodine tablets and a package of orange drink into the bottle of septic water, give the concoction a vigorous shake, and guzzle down a half quart of murky, lukewarm, floater-filled, iodine-flavored, orange drink and when I didn’t  immediately projectile-vomit orange slime and die, Craig decided to give the koolaid a try. ​

---

Go to Part 17

---

The CDTC was founded in 2012 by volunteers and recreationists hoping to provide a unified voice for the CDT. Working hand-in-hand with the U.S. Forest Service and other federal land management agencies, the CDTC is a non-profit partner supporting stewardship of the CDT. The mission of the CDTC is to complete, promote and protect the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail, a world-class national resource. For more information, please visit continentaldividetrail.org.

---