Part Twenty Five

​     July 18 - 19               Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness, MT               (Go to Pt 1)
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Before we committed to the descent we dropped our packs and pulled out the lunch bag. We didn’t talk much about how we were going descend and after picking through our lunch ration for the day there was really nothing left to do but to start plunge-stepping down the steep scree to the splintered rocks below.
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The descent was sketchy but turned out to be not quite as steep or as long as coming up the north side had been. We bottomed out at the debris pile collecting at the base of the ridge then traversed back onto level ground.

From here we traveled south along two miles of gentle, rolling tundra, across the upper basin of Moose Creek, then over a gentle rise into the Rock Creek basin.  We traversed the upper Rock Creek basin to the southwest ridge which took us over into the Fourth of July Creek valley.   The ridge was easy to attain and the descent into the upper valley was steep but short.

It was only 4:30 in the afternoon when we arrived at the creek and there was still plenty of daylight left with which to advance our position 

but I just didn’t think my legs could carry me over another pass and Craig kept mentioning his knee joints at the bottom of each excruciating descent.  We were done-in so we set about finding a tent site.

The upper reaches of the valley were narrow and steeply sloped and despite being well practiced at searching out tent platforms it still took a while to find a spot that was not quite big enough nor exactly flat enough for the tent but, with a little ground-clearing and shoring, adequate enough to wedge in a camp.

It rained on and off throughout the night and the next morning everything was wet; the trees dripped all over everything and once we got going the wet underbrush shed cold rainwater all down my bare legs. 

We wasted little time getting out of the brush and back in the sun to the base of a talus slope leading up to the next saddle we needed to cross.  Here we were pleasantly surprised to find a wide, grassy meadow just beyond the talus that made easy work of reaching yet another pass along the Divide.

From the saddle we traversed gentle terrain around a cirque formed by the Continental Divide at the head of the Big Lake Creek valley.  We were walking mostly through thin, open forest interspersed with stretches of alpine meadow that reached out across about a mile and a half of gentle geography.  The hiking was far away from any trail and it was absolutely fantastic!  The terrain was a glide and my pack felt like it was carrying half the weight.

The route eventually led us around to a glittering, sapphire lake, unnamed, just below the ridgeline then up a gentle grade to another saddle.  From there we dropped a short distance into an upper tributary of Big Lake Creek, traversing around the headwaters then dropping slightly in elevation before climbing back up to the Divide.  Here we stopped to consult the maps.

From what I could tell by the map, we were about to cross a long, sprawling pass and then there were two options for getting beyond a long, jagged ridge that intersected difficult terrain along the Divide and blocked our path.

One option was to drop down several hundred feet in elevation and slog our way around the towering peninsula on trails (a plan I did not favor much) or we could commit to a half-mile bushwhack up-valley to climb over a steeply contoured spot on the ridge that we could not yet see. 

I was all for sticking with the route over the ridge but, for the first time since we started the trip in Canada, Craig balked at climbing over a ridge.  He was looking at the steeply stacked contours on the map and shaking his head. 
I was like “What?” It was not like Craig to shy away from a direct route like this.  “Why don’t you want to take the short cut?” I asked.  We were still in the forest and did not have a view of the terrain, so this route planning was purely speculative based on what we saw on the map.  

“What if we get over there and it’s too steep to get up?” Craig asked “It’s a mile out of the way if we don’t get over it.  And look at the backside” he stated, pointing at the steep, south-side contours.   

“Oh common!” came my tactful reply “We cross shit like this all the time!” Craig didn’t respond, he just handed the map back to me and shouldered his pack. 

 “What?” I said, raising my voice. 

“Alright, let’s go” he replied, clearly irritated. 

‘Well, okay’ I thought ‘the saddle it is then’ slinging my pack and marching off into the woods.

We ambled across the long, sprawling pass through open forest until finally we got to where we could get a view of the ridge and our intended route over the saddle.  Well, it did indeed look steep.  

Now I’m thinking ‘oh man, if we get over there and this ridge is not climbable, I’m gonna be eating crow for a week.’  We hiked a ways further through the forest until the trees came to an abrupt halt at the toe of a talus debris pile below the saddle.

At the top of this debris pile there was a grassy ramp that started to weave its way up the slope through the broken rock. I didn’t even pause; I just started up the ramp.  As I got further up I continued to find thin ribbons of grassy ramp carving their way up the slope, through the rock barriers and debris all the way to the top. When I finally got to a point to where I could see we were going to make it over the top of the ridge, I paused to catch my breath. 

The grassy ramps had made quick work of the climb to the top of the ridge and I was about to give Craig the whole ‘I told you so’ attitude when we walked across the saddle and looked down the other side. ​

The south side was angled such that all the larger, loose rocks had already fallen to the talus field at the bottom, leaving behind steep gullies of mostly gravel sized scree that was too steep to plunge-step without losing traction and sliding off down the chute.

“Godamit!” I spit.  Craig had dropped his pack and was peering down the mountain face, “Jesus!” he laughed, shaking his head as he turned away.  Having to turn back and descend to take the lower route around this ridge horn was by now unthinkable, at least in my mind.
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There had to be a way to get down the south side of this ridge.  Then I had a most ridiculous idea: what if we did just go ahead and slide down one of the 500 foot chutes on the scree?

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Go to Part 26

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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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