Part Seventeen

     June 25 – June 27                  Deerlodge NF, MT                      (Go to Pt 1)
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We camped that night in a thinly wooded pasture tucked high up in Sunday Gulch. The next morning we hiked cross-county out of Sunday Gulch up onto a sparsely forested, ambling plateau. We trekked across the open terrain for about a mile or so before descending to Norton Creek which we followed down to German Gulch.

Shortly after starting up German Gulch we came up on an abandoned, turn-of-the-century ranch house standing out in a small meadow. In the summertime grasses the old, greying house looked to me like an art-museum oil-painting come to life.
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Paintbrush and Fireweed grew tall and in abundance out front with the old, sagging, paint-bare shelter growing up from a plot of high grasses and sage, nestled against a silvery-barked stand of shimmering aspen leaves.

Click on map for a larger image

A dilapidated but welcoming veranda wrapped around two sides of the house so we dropped our packs, pulled the lunch bag, and stepped up onto the porch.  The deck’s wood planks were grey and curled with age but the thick, rough sawn lumber was still stout under foot.
 
We went through the doorless entry into a moderate, yet spacious living area that was much brighter inside than I’d expected.  All the doors and windows had long since been removed along with any and all fixtures and hardware, leaving only the wood shell with light streaming through the doors and numerous window frames.  

We got comfortable on the wood floor in the main room and ate lunch, gazing out the large openings at the roaming yard of wildflowers. “How old do you think this place is?” I pondered out loud. “I don’t know,” Craig replied “turn of the century, maybe. It kind of reminds me of the Cartwright house on Bonanza.”  The wood’s weathering had probably been accelerated by the harsh, mountain environment but the house did look to be maybe 100 years old.  

My mind wandered to imagine what life might have been like living in these Montana mountains during the 19th century; how isolated and remote it would have been and the level of self-sufficiency, ingenuity and sheer toughness it would have required to survive. That thought kind of made what Craig and I were doing seem rather pedestrian, if I started to make any comparisons.

Divide Ridge Wildflowers

From the antique, ranch house we continued up German Gulch on a delightful trail that meandered through open stands of aspen and pine along a clear, rolling stream.  Near the end of what was a hot day in the gulch, we came across a deep, clear pool of water fed by a babbling 

brook straight out of wonderland, complete with toadstool stones crowned by large, flowering, columbine bells. 

Facing a hot, sweaty climb up out of the gulch to finish our day on the other side, we opted instead for an early camp and a dip. The water was nipple-biting cold but it sure felt great to rinse off four days of sweat-encrusted, trail dirt.

The following day we climbed out of German Gulch, hiking past the German Gulch Mine and I was like “whoa cowboy, take a look at that!” This was late 1900’s, industrially-altered landscape on such a large scale and so incongruent to the remote mountains we were in that it really was an astounding  sight .  

A colossal, mining operation had completely disemboweled a vast section of mountainside and, according to a sign posted at the top, the mine had produced $13 million dollars’ worth of gold (for whom it did not say) around the turn of the century.  To be sure, the titanic mess they left behind was indeed impressive, in a man-made-disaster kind of way.  

From the mine we did a quick valley descent into Minnesota Gulch then climbed back out the west side to reconnect with the Divide’s ridgeline.  The top of the ridge was open, just above tree line, and the entire rolling, sprawling crest was a boundless meadow of alpine wildflowers.

A duvet of vibrant reds, greens, purples, whites and yellows lay out across the lazy ridge for over a mile and it was as if we had just crossed over into the Land of Oz.  We were literally walking knee deep in wildflowers and I never would have imagined that ambient air could be so enticingly sweet or wildflowers so utterly stunning!

We dropped the packs, pulled off our boots and sat back in the midst of this splendid, botanical display to eat lunch.  Craig had been off-pace all morning and wasn’t much interested in eating, saying he was feeling some kind of funk he lay back against his pack and dozed off.  I ate my usual ration of nuts, cheese and sausage then dipped into Craig’s ration for an extra bite; I was simply making his load a bit lighter, too, right?  Besides, he was asleep. 
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Divide Ridge Sugarloaf Mtn

The sun was warm and, after topping off my lunch with some of Craig’s ‘extras’, I settled back to absorb the whole fantastical scene.  An hour and a half later I woke up.

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Go to Part 18

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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.

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