Part Thirty Five

     August 7th-9th                Beaverhead-Deerlodge NF                (Go to Pt 1)
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The day was wearing thin and when we came across a creek in the woods, we called it quits not knowing where the heck we were, once again.  Camp was nothing to speak of and there was no conversation that evening about what was looking to be another misadventure.  But hey, at least I was able to refill my water supply throughout the day.

It rained on and off during the night but the next morning was spectacularly blue and we set off earlier than normal because we had to get ourselves unlost and somehow make-up for yesterday’s lost miles.  Before we’d even stepped out of camp, though, we both had a sense that this pack trail we had been following wasn’t going to bend back to the east the way we were hoping and, as anticipated, less than a mile later the path looped around and started heading northwest.  Well, that was pretty much it for that trail.  ​

Click on the map for a larger image

We looked across the open slopes to the east and figured crossing out that way wouldn’t be too difficult, so we headed off into the brush. The cross-country travel across Baldy’s southeastern flank was through neither meadow nor forest but instead presented a whole new way to hinder our progress – thickly bushed, weed fields; deceptive and insidious.  What we saw were low bushes and waist-high weeds that did not appear to be a big deal until we got started through the maze and were quickly swamped.

The compacted bushes’ thousands of tiny, stiff branches acted like small hands and fingernails, grabbing at my boots, laces and legs with every step and the waist high weeds that a month ago would have swayed out of our path were now stiff and boney and only gave-way if stomped down first, it was nuts.

We kicked and stomped our way through a wide meadow of this junk then continued through more of this foliage pestilence up a long grade to the crest of a rise.  From the top of the rise we could finally see terrain that was covered by one of our maps, allowing us to regain our bearings and determine our approximate location and it was like ‘Well, shit’.

We weren’t going over the top of the mountain and we weren’t going around the base, what we were doing was a girdle-traverse across the middle of this monstrosity, over hill and dale, off-trail, through a bunch of brambled-up weeds like a couple of Keystone Cops. And from what I could see from the maps, our next hope for water looked to be on the other side of the planet.

By midday, though, we had figured out how to find the weaknesses of the brush and were working our way toward the headwaters of a small creek where we planned to stop for lunch but when we got there the creek bed was dry.  At this point we were nearly back up to the Divide, so we decided to cross over to the north side where another small creek was shown on the map. 
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On our way down the north slope we happily stumbled across a trail that was going our way to the creek but once there we again found only rocks and gravel where we’d hoped to find water.  I stood holding my near empty bottle staring at sand and stones where there should have been something to drink while Craig was over there taking a pull off his water bottle, neatly slipping it back into the side pocket of his pack. The sweatless bastard.

The trail continued to play in our favor and took us east below the crest of the Divide all the way to within a mile or so of the base of Taylor Mountain.  We arrived late in the day and, much to my parched relief, were finally able to locate water.  It was only a trickle dribbling out of the rocks, but it was enough.  We set camp in the waning light and had a quiet supper.  After we’d eaten, I lounged for a bit, wrote in my journal, watched a few distant stars appear in the sky then crawled into the tent and fell into an exhausted sleep.  ​

I had a dream in the night about being desperately thirsty and wandering about not being able to find water; it ended in a grotesque, public bathroom where all the toilets were plugged with overflowing sewage and no water came out of the rusted, sink faucets. The realism of the dream finally woke me up to my body saying ‘Hey, you in there, I’m really thirsty and I need to poop.’

During the early morning hours, it began to drizzle and by daylight our campsite was engulfed in thick, white fog.  We set about our morning chores in this deafening white that was so disorientating as to practically give me vertigo.  If I walked even twenty feet from the tent it would completely disappear along with my sense of direction. I found this out after I’d hustled out of the tent for that morning squat and had to holler for direction back to camp which was only about 25 yards away.
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Once the gear was packed, we started off on what was left of the trail we had been following the day before which led us into a fog blanketed meadow and vanished, leaving us standing in long grass with just a compass to follow into the whiteness.

After about 45 minutes of stumbling around in this opaque, empty space, the sky above began to break and the sun finally burned its way through.  Then, over about ten minutes of stunning, mountain beauty, the fog broke apart, turning golden in the sunlight and towering beyond, Taylor Mountain magically appeared through the clouds. 
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At the bottom of Taylor Mountain, we found another trail that took us up 3,000 grueling feet to the ridge, taking us a little over three hours to ascend.  From the top of the ridge, just below the summit of Taylor, we looked down 5,000 feet to Red Rocks Lakes, sprawling out across the pancake-flat plains to the north below.  That was a pretty stunning sight!

From Taylor Mountain the skyline, ridge traverse continued across nearly four miles of rugged terrain before making a long descent of over 1,000 feet to a shallow saddle then back up over the next two miles, regaining the lost elevation to a high plateau; from there it was all downhill.

Click on the map for a larger image

We descended to Blair Lake where we ran across a herd of Boy Scouts, at least 30 of them, and they were all over the place; I remember thinking ‘glad I don’t have to keep track of that mayhem’ just before we dropped from the lake into the Hell Roaring Canyon, too soon as it turned out, and promptly lost the trail.  Now I was wishing those Scout leaders had kept an eye on us.

We descended to Blair Lake where we ran across a herd of Boy Scouts, at least 30 of them, and they were all over the place; I remember thinking ‘glad I don’t have to keep track of that mayhem’ just before we dropped from the lake into the Hell Roaring Canyon, too soon as it turned out, and promptly lost the trail.  Now I was wishing those Scout leaders had kept an eye on us.

The canyon bottom hiking wasn’t too bad at first, kind of cool, actually, so we got suckered into the lower canyon.  Before long the gorge narrowed and became another crash-and-bash bushwhack through thickets and canyon bottom deadfall.  We forearm-swiped our way through a strangle of saplings out to a marsh then squished our way across to the woods on the far side.

I was watching the ground underfoot so as not to trip over stuff, which at the moment consisted of tree branches and forest debris, when, without even a hint of change to the forest floor, I stepped forward but my foot did not land and instead I began to fall.  “Craig!” I screamed as I plunged forward into a woodland bog.

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Go to Part 36

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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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