Part Fifty Four

​     September 17th - 19th        Great Divide Basin, WY                   (Go to Pt 1)

We walked out of Lander the following morning, first on pavement then out onto a gravel road. We followed the road down to the Little Popo Agie river where we began to work our way up into the meandering foothills on unimproved, dirt roads that seemed to run all over the place. ​

To get out to the Divide Basin we had opted for a direct, lowland, dirt road approach similar to the method employed by the northbound Divide hikers we’d crossed paths with in Montana, but with the easy miles also came the monotony of road walking which was, as it always was, an exercise in excruciating boredom that elongated the hours.

​Toward the end of this long, toiling, trudge-of-a-day, an old pick-up truck came clattering up the road and stopped alongside of us.  The driver leaned out and asked “Hey, where are you guys going?” Not in a threatening way but in a way that made it sound like maybe we were trespassing.

Click on the map for a larger image

I stepped over to the truck and replied “Actually, we’re just looking for a place to camp tonight.  Do you know, is there any water close-by?”  The guy, who looked friendly enough, smiled and said, “Yeah, hop-in, I live just up the road and you can camp at my place, I’ve got water.”  I paused to look over at Craig then back at the guy who again said “Hop-in, I’m just up the road.”  So, we threw our packs in the back of the pick-up and hopped-in.

The driver introduced himself as John and after getting our names he wanted to know just what we were doing up in these woods, in as much as we were the first ‘backpackers’ he’d come across in the eight or so years he’d been living up there.
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“Well,” I replied, “we’re trying to walk the Continental Divide from Canada to Mexico, so we’re on our way down to the Divide Basin now.”  Upon hearing this, John became engaged like we were already good friends saying, “You guys have to come up to my place and tell me more about this trip you’re doing!”

About ten minutes later the truck arrived at a dirt cul-de-sac of sorts and lurched to a stop in front of a tiny, hand-built, log cabin nestled in the trees.  This is where Craig and I would have ended-up had we walked the last part of the road, at a dead end, cul-de-sac.  We got out of the truck and followed John into his cabin where he got us water to drink.

John was a laidback, easygoing kind of guy who quickly became a fascinating character as he told us more about himself, a published and nationally recognized wildlife biologist who had chipped away at building his homestead here in the woods over several years using only hand tools, many of which he had made himself. ​

​​​But initially, he was interested in quizzing us about our Continental Divide trip and asked a litany of questions about the flora and fauna we had seen since Canada, in particular to certain seasonal conditions. Our observations in answer to his questions were lame, at best, and I suddenly felt like I’d just walked 1,500 miles and failed to notice most of what was going on around me. 

Then John explained he was gathering data on warming trends in the Rocky Mountains and what effect it was having on the alpine and subalpine ecosystems.  I didn’t realize it at the time because ‘global warming’ had yet to come into the lexicon, but John was an early researcher into climate change.

After failing miserably at his biology quiz, John changed-it up a bit and asked about anything “odd or strange” we had experienced along the way.  I shrugged and, rather off-the-cuff, mentioned the Bigfoot tracks we’d followed in northern Montana.  At the mention of Bigfoot, John lit-up “That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about!” he exclaimed.

He pulled material from a large bookshelf against the wall and showed us a collection of information and data he was compiling on Bigfoot and very much wanted us to send him copies of the footprint photos we had taken. Then he told us about his own Bigfoot sighting but, like everybody else, didn’t get a picture.

The evening grew late, so John suggested we just throw our sleeping bags out on the cabin floor, which we were very grateful for when bad weather blew-in during the night. Wind and rain continued to lash at the cabin the following morning and persisted through most of the next day.

John, who was obviously happy to have some company around, encouraged us to just stay put until the weather passed.  Looking out the window, I knew the wind and rain was really just a mental block because all we had to do was put on our rain gear and start walking, but neither one of us could muster the fortitude to cut loose of the cabin to go out and walk muddy roads in miserable weather, so we stayed put.

The day spent at the cabin was advantageous in that John knew a lot about the Divide Basin.  We pulled out our maps and he was able to better identify for us the two water sources we would need to find, as well as other pertinent information, including a warning about the wild horses which really didn’t sink-in until later when we were down in the desert facing wild horses.

​The next morning saw high, thin clouds, warmer temperatures and a light breeze.  Craig and I stuffed our sleeping bags and prepared to leave but just as we were about to say  

thanks and goodbye, John kept us engaged in conversation and offered up more coffee.  I was anxious to get going but we had another cup then got up to leave.

​John stood as we did and said “Let me drive you down the road a short piece. It’s easy to get lost up here, I’ll just get you down to where it’s safe.” And I was like “No, no, really, we’ve got maps, you know, we’ll be fine.”  But he was already grabbing his truck keys and throwing on his jacket. “Come on” he said.

Craig and I both hesitated but as we stood there, John hopped in the truck and waved for us to get in, so we threw our packs in the back and got in.  After about fifteen minutes of bouncing along a mesa top, two-track road, I turned to John and said, “Hey, really man, this is good.  Why don’t you let us off and we can walk it from here.”  But he wouldn’t pull over, just saying, “Nah, hang-on, I’ll get you out to where it will be okay for you guys to walk.”  Well, this was certainly different, I’d just asked this guy to pull-over and let us out and he’d refused. 
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Another five minutes passed and again I said “Hey, John, we’re supposed to be walking this, you know, why don’t you let us off right up here.” To which he just kind of laughed and said, “Hang-on, we’re almost there.”  Now I’m thinking ‘What the heck… “almost there” - almost where??’ We were in the middle of some of the most barren, no-man’s-land I’d ever seen.  Then, coming over a slight rise in the road, John stopped the truck and shut off the engine.

He pointed out to a faint butte on the horizon and said, “Head for that butte out there, stay north of it and South Pass is just beyond.”  He looked over at us with a big smile and I could tell he was pretty pleased about being able to point out the desert’s first landmark to us.  Okay, well, that was a relief, I don’t know what I thought was going to happen but John just wanted make sure we got out to South Pass, which was crucial to our route.   

We grabbed our packs from the back of the truck and thanked him several times over for his hospitality and help in preparing us for the desert as we shouldered our loads.  I could tell John was happy to have been a part of our story and also pretty entertained that a couple of guys on foot, navigating their way to Mexico, would come right through his homestead.
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John waved, turned the truck around and drove off, leaving us staring out at the last vestige of hills before an expanse of overwhelming nothingness.  The butte John had pointed out was so distant as to appear only as a wavy, mirage-like feature on the horizon and out ahead of us stretched a ruler-straight ribbon of gravel road that vanished off in the distance long before reaching the butte.  Looking down that barren road, I felt like we were wandering out onto the face of the moon. 

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Go to Part 55

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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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