Two great hikes with two great visitors

Wow what a great weekend I had.  Keith was visiting a friend in Zortman, MT last week and planned to visit en route home.  He invited his friend and soon-to-be TransRockies (bike race in Canada) partner, Jill, who just moved to Missoula from Alaska, to come hang out with us.  I hadn't met Jill but have read her blog, which is really a well-written and interesting blog.  Not surprisingly, she's incredibly cool and lots of fun to hang out with.

Gunsight Lake

We messaged back and forth about her weekend plans and ultimately she came for the whole weekend to hike in Glacier National Park.  For Saturday, I took her on the Gunsight Pass hike, which is a 20 mile point-to-point hike from the Jackson Glacier Overlook stop on the shuttle to Lake McDonald.  This is such a fantastic hike, and I was super happy to share it with someone who had never done it.  It was a great day, despite the fact that the snow was not plentiful as suggested by the GNP trailstatus report.  I brought my shiny new ice axe but didn't really need it.  I'm glad I have it though and I did carry it in my hand for one snow-field crossing. 

Danni & Jill at Gunsight Pass

Lake Ellen Wilson

that baby is so cute I want to put it in my pocket

Keith met us in East Glacier on Sunday and we hiked another favorite trail of mine: Dawson-Pitimakin Pass.  The east side of the park is much drier and rockier looking.  Beautiful in a different way than the west side of the park.  This loop hike is about 17 miles and is a relatively easy hike for the pay-off.  I was a little tired from Saturday so it wasn't "easy" but it was definitely fun and worthwhile.

Jill and Keith at Dawson Pass

Jill, Danni and Keith on the trail

the view from Pitimakin Pass

Jill cross-training for TransRockies

It was so nice, as always, to see my friend Keith and it was nice, as always, to make a new super awesome friend who lives nearby.  Life is good!

Devil's Backbone

Saturday I ran the "Devil's Backbone" near Bozeman in the Gallatin. It's a 50 mile race that I had planned to make a "goal" race. This devolved into doing half of it -- from the start to the Windy Pass Cabin. I rode back to town with Emily, who was not only my gracious hostess with the mostess for the weekend but was also the sweep. The full 50 miler, which I think is probably actually 44 miles, has over 12,000 feet of elevation gain and the best scenery ever.

The first 4 miles or so wind their way up to this lovely view. The sun was really coming out as we made our way to higher elevation. Most of the course is between 9,000 and 10,000+ feet. For some reason I had the sensation of being able to breathe better up high -- like the normal weight on my chest was lifted. I know my breathing was probably, in fact, impaired, but it felt really good. Not sure why.

At one point, heading towards Hyalite Peak, there was a large field of avalanche debris. Martin Miller looks like he's buried. It was great to see Martin and I owe him some chapstick and a ride somewhere.

To get to Hyalite Peak we had to get on top of this ridge. This was one of the two snowfields that just couldn't be avoided. I had been fearing this but it wasn't bad at all. The snow was softish.


Runners heading up to the snowfield.

Near the end of the traverse across the snow. It was nice to be near the end -- the path was well stomped and sliding was unlikely.

After getting up the snowy saddle, there was still a walk along the ridge to get up to Hyalite Peak. The view from the peak was pretty awesome and worth the climb. A climb that wasn't, by far, the most strenous of the day. None of the climbs were torture though. It was so beautiful it was tough to mind working hard. Also, most of the climbs were pretty short (relatively speaking).

My eyes are closed in this picture I think but I was darn happy. I didn't want this day to end.

There was so much green. Lots of high green meadow. Gorgeous.

The flowers were like electric coolaid acid flowers. I fully expected to suddenly see Julie Andrews spinning around singing about the sound of music.

Lots of ridge running. I guess that's what the Devil's Backbone looks like. Except not as pretty and flowery probably.

Pretty much the whole day I was thinking "wow!" "no way!" "more?!" "yeah!" It was like the funnest amusement park ride that just kept bringing the excitement -- except you had to do the work to keep going of course.

This is what I look like in my happy place!!! (According to my friend Keith that's the same as when I'm in my bored, surprised, scared or unhappy place too).

I was actually sad though when I got around mile 19 and didn't want it to end. I started stewing about work drama and tried reminding myself that *this* is what it's all about. Eventually I caught some other folks and chatted a bit and stopped thinking about work. I briefly considered just turning back at the finish and doing the whole thing, but I didn't have enough food and figured it's better to be left wanting more than hating life at mile 37. All in all, it was awsome. I can't wait to back and run it next year. Or later this summer maybe :-)

BUTTE, AMERICA

Ted planned a little summer vacation for us -- to the National Folk Festival which has been in Butte, Montana for the past three years, including this year. We saw a broad range of folk music, including classical music from southern India, gospel (with a James Brown flair), African-American tap dance with jazz piano, tango, Moroccan, Appalachian and even Quebecois. It was a fantastic festival.

Butte is, historically, an important and interesting place. It's a mining town that, at one time, had a population around 100,000. It even had a "china-town" at one time -- I think maybe one of America's first. It was booming -- but the copper kings took their riches back to the east coast leaving Butte with its giant superfund site. It is now a hardscrabble blue-collar town known for its significant Irish-American population. It's great that Butte is gaining popularity as a festival location (there is a Gaelic festival there already) and an outdoorsy place. I think Outside or some magazine ranked it as a great place to live for those things not too long ago.

Rather than stay in or near Butte, Ted booked us accomodations in a firetower at Medicine Point in the Bitterroot Mountains, near Sula, Montana. This was incredible. The hike up, which was only 3.6 miles, was arduous in the sun and heat, but well worth it.

It was the perfect place to sit, watch the sunset and drink a few beers (which we hiked up, which probably made the hike even more fatiguing).

We stayed there two nights, the second night hiking up as it was growing dark. I was reminded of why I most like 100 mile races -- the transition to darkness on the trail. Ted pointed out that we can do that without running 100 miles. . . like we did this weekend. Huh who knew :p We made much better time hiking up the second time when the sun wasn't beating on us.

Saturday night we stayed at Elkhorn Hot Springs, which is an old school lodge (with indoor plumbing though) in the Pioneer Mountains. To get back to Butte for Sunday's festival lineup, we went south to Bannack, which is Montana's first territorial capital and now a ghost town, before heading north to Butte (with a stop at the Patagonia Outlet store in Dillon of course).

Bannack was a neat visit, and learning about the gold rush mining days (1862-63 (if memory serves) was when people flocked to Bannack) made me greatful to NOT have been part of that. It sounded downright lawless and tough. Justice was of the vigilante variety it seems, although there was a miners court that dealt with miners' "claims" (as in area they were entitled to mine).

There is an old Masonic Temple (this is not it) in Bannack, and a couple of Masons were hanging around to give history lessons and be generally folksy. Ted was recruited for the Masons, but unfortunately didn't seem too interested. I think Ted would make a great Mason.

"But it was a dry hail"

I went backpacking with my friend Angie this weekend. I've wanted to through-hike the Alpine 7 (the course of the Swan Crest 100) for some time, and Angie was willing to give it a go. We planned some time back that we would do it 4th of July weekend. I think at the time it was looking like an early-melt year. It has not, in fact, turned out to be an early melt year.
We planned to hike from Napa Point to Strawberry Lake, or in the 60ish mile range. Both of us can make good mileage in a day so this seemed perfectly reasonable over 3 days. The first few miles of the hike, which featured clear trail, went by very quickly. However, it quickly became what we determined was some sort of cosmic drinking game, with one obstacle/aggravation after another. Ha ha ha now let's hit them with hail.

By the way, these pictures are in no particular order. The picture above is by our campsite last night. Anyhow, back to the tale, after a few miles we hit solid snow. We spent hours and hours upon hours routefinding. I realized my map is sort of worthless and we relied mostly on visual cues and the compass to tell us we were going in the generally correct direction.

It was also pretty cold and foggy. We were frequently enveloped in clouds. And, of course, it hailed on us. Repeatedly.


But Angie, being an optimist, remarked that "at least it's a dry hail." Below we are seeking refuge from some of the larger hail that hurt.
Literally, we spent probably 8 hours to make 3 miles of trail. We probably hiked 10 miles if you were to go by our footprints. We were laughing hysterically (a lot during this trip) in the tent about how if we were to be rescued they'd see all our footprints all over, the pictures we took in the tent with our flasks and note that we'd only made it a few miles. The story would probably note "alcohol was a factor." In truth it was just really tought to find the trail most of the way. Remarkably, we did!

At one point we decided we should just turn around -- we couldn't find the trail. But both of us are OCD and goal-oriented and couldn't let it go. Just couldn't. So we eventually found the trail and stubbornly but wearily continued onward.

Unfortunately, the snow started getting worse insofar as it was slushy and extremely slidey. To continue on the trail we would have had to take a fairly significant risk. Like, a risk to our safety. I would have probably been ok as I was wearing crampons, though they didn't help that much in the slush, but Ang just had my kahtoolah microspikes which weren't really enough traction. So we turned back.

At that point we were so fatigued we didn't care that much. Sliding around in snow is exhausting. Route-finding is mentally fatiguing. And at one point I slipped and started sliding down the mountain, but was able to grab a tree not too far from the "trail." It was scary enough that we were both pretty much "done" with the snow hiking adventure.

This picture, by the way, is the very first. We were crying laughing so hard about how this would be the picture in the paper. With the story that said "alcohol was a factor." Anyhow, it was actually a lot of fun and we found a pretty fantastic place to pitch our tent up on top of a mountain peak. We were protected by some trees but basically had a 360 degree view. It was incredible. We did not stumble upon any bear compounds and no one was hurt. All in all, it was a great time.

Of note: the Starbucks instant "Via" coffee is awesome. Although I have a backpacking french-press, the Via was excellent.

P.S. Ted graciously dropped us off AND picked us up which was unplanned -- we left Angie's car at our intended finish at Strawberry Lake TH. Thanks Ted I love you you're the best :-) What a supportive husband!