East Glacier, MT to Lincoln, MT

The trail south out of East Glacier is flat and the trail is very overgrown in spots. We entered into 'The Bob' (the Bob Marshall Wilderness) and the scenery was limited for the first day with the hiking continuing to be flat, following mostly rivers and small creeks. Experienced our first trail magic of the CDT. A guy in a truck stopped and asked if we were thru hiking and gave us two beers. This was a long 8 day, 182 mile stretch between towns. Benchmark is just a resupply point with no hiker services available, its primarily a staging area for hikers and stock entering the Montana backcountry. We literally got our food resupply drops and moved on.Nonetheless, it was very helpful because it allowed us to split up food weight, 5 days and 3 days rather than carry 8 days at once! The highlight of The Bob is the Chinese Wall, a 1000 foot high, 15-mile long escarpment that is the Continental Divide. It's impressive, and we had a perfect day to enjoy it! We've had so many fords I can't keep track, none too deep, but the water is extremely cold. This was a very lonely section, we had 4 days where we didn't see a single person on trail. Instead, our companions have been the flies of Montana. Hardly no mosquitos but there are deer flies, horse flies, flies with green and yellow eyes; they are all big and they all bite! We have had some navigation challenges too, this trail is very obscure, if not just plain missing in spots. Compared to the AT or PCT its hardly maintained and poorly & confusingly marked at times. Between the two of us, our maps and the GPS though we've managed to find our way. There have been moments where we needed to back track, bushwack, stare at our maps for 20 minutes scratching our heads. This is a much different trail than the AT or PCT...you need to pay attention, no mindless walking down this trail. We've seen more wildlife too, moose, elk and more bears. We almost literally ran into a cinnamon colored black bear coming around a corner of the trail. The bear and I were equally surprised and the bear took off without hesitation. The strategy Safety and I have adopted while in Grizzly country is to eat dinner a couple hours and miles before setting up camp for the night. We're also diligent about making our presence known when the undergrowth closes in on the trail or when its overgrown near rushing water. The last 25 miles into Lincoln, MT were by far the most challenging. The trail had been staying relatively low (5-6k feet) near water and shaded mostly, save for some burn areas we walked through. Then the trail played a cruel trick and decided to follow RIGHT on the Continental Divide. Straight up, straight down, up over every ridge in sight, rocky, exposed, hot and limited water. It was like the worst of the AT and PCT on one trail! We were not prepared for any of it, our failure not to look ahead on our maps and water report. Lesson learned is what this was. So you can imagine after 8 days and over 180 miles, we were ecstatic to reach Rogers Pass, and Lincoln, MT. Eat, shower, eat, laundry, eat, sleep in a bed, eat, using a toilet, eating more. Simple pleasures not available to thru-hikers any other time. Big Animal Count 2 Black Bears 1 Moose 10 Elk