Lincoln, MT to Darby, MT

South of Lincoln the trail continued to be frustratingly ambiguous. More navigation issues, bushwacking & back tracking. We ended up taking our first zero day in Helena, MT. Safety had developed a blister over a blister that was healing. We got a quick hitch from Mike and his dog Molly who were playing ball at the pass. It was a good move, we needed the day off and the State Capitol was a good place to enjoy some good food, good local beer at the Blackfoot River Brewery and recover from doing big miles. The trail, since leaving Glacier and the Chinese Wall in The Bob has been just 'meh', to be honest. We came across a much needed water source 'Dana Spring' that was contaminated with dead squirrels and rats because previous users did not put the lid back on properly. This turned out not to be a big issue for us as it was late in the day and we were able to get some water early the next morning about 5 miles in. Made it into Anaconda, MT, decided to spend the night and wait out the really nasty thunderstorms that were forecast to roll through...and they did and we stayed safe & dry! Thanks to Freebird (PCT alumni class of 2012) for sending trail magic our way, chocolate chip cookies and zucchini bread waiting for us at the Anaconda PO. Early the next day we set out and discovered that the storm had been much worse in the mountains, piles of grape-sized hail remained in the shaded areas, confirming our good decision. The two of us had grown tired of the PUDs (pointless ups and downs) of the last week and were ready for change. The Anaconda Pintler Wilderness was a dramatic change of scenery; rugged peaks, beautiful high mountain meadows and lakes. A lot of tough big pass climbs but plenty of reward for the effort at least. Really the gem of this section, the best walking & scenery since Glacier NP. We finally ran into our first NOBO thru-hikers. Mountain Rat one day and the very next day Litter Box and Yukon. Litter Box and Yukon are start-up organic farmers in Nor-Cal so we immediately hit it off and had good conversation about farming. This is just the tip of the NOBOs coming through, I'm guessing in the next week or two we will be crossing paths with the pack. It's been nice to see some other thrus the last couple days. It's also been nice that lately, the trail has been a trail that can be followed! We have seen more wildlife, mostly Elk, which like to heard together. I did see a Coyote right in the trail. It was surprised to see me, yelped at me and ran off. We did see Mountain Goats at Pintler Pass, high above us on some jagged peaks. We never would have seen them if we hadn't heard the rocks they kicked down the steep cliff side. We got an easy 31 mile hitch down to Darby, MT. It really is the best trail town so far for us...hiker friendly, good eats, compact, easily navigated, cheap place to stay and a great grocery store for resupply. This morning we head out of Darby and will be leaving Montana for Idaho. A new state, but not for long, we come back into extreme SW Montana again before entering NW corner of Wyoming and Yellowstone NP! Big Animal count 33 Elk, 5 Mountain Goats

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

Canadian Border to East Glacier, MT

Everything went pretty smoothly getting to East Glacier, MT. Safety Officer and I had a rendezvous in Spokane, WA where we continued on the train to East Glacier. The one little snag came when we tried to get our permits to start in Waterton, Canada to coordinate with the already full shuttles that need to be reserved, but hotel guests with a package deal get first dibs on that. So there is no way to guarantee that you'll be able to get on the shuttle in time to coordinate with the backcountry permit nights you're given, based on availability, that you are required to adhere to while in GNP. A perfect example of a private business (the shuttle service) not being able to communicate with the National Park Service (gov't, who gives out the permits). It's confusing, and it's a cluster f&@k of disorganization. Rather than get frustrated over this Safety and I, along with the help of the fantastic Ranger at Two Medicine, figured out a way to just flip this section....start here in EGP and go north to the Chief Mountain Border crossing. This takes out the shuttle equation all together and we would just hitch hike back to EGP after reaching the Canadian Border. This allowed us to start hiking early the next day, which we were anxious to do since we are starting SOBO (southbound) later than most. Big thanks to Mule Skinner and Wood Rose, CDT section hikers who shuttled us to Two Medicine, so we could all figure out our back country permit itineraries. Just a tiny taste of the logistics involved for a thru hike...the key is to be flexible and know that your plans will change at times.

The words 'epic' and 'amazing' are overused and used in the wrong context too often. Both are warranted when describing the backcountry of Glacier National Park. It's the hands down victor of truly epic scenery AND amazing wildlife. 

Incredibly, we got a fast & easy double hitch back to EGP. We covered a lot of miles in four days. We are both sore and both have some blisters but that sometimes comes with just starting out, combine that with some wet fords and doing too many miles too early.
The highlight of GNP came the day we had a climb up and over Piegan Pass. We had gotten up early again to cover miles and enjoy the cooler morning temps. Just before the pass we came across a juvenile Moose right on the trail. It walked towards us, maybe curious. It wouldn't move for us to pass so we hollered, clicked and waved our poles. Eventually she moved slightly off the trail behind some trees, only about 15' from us and we were able to get by. Soon after, we crested beautiful Piegan Pass and continued north. As we were switchbacking our way down I looked back up the steep pass and running up this massive snowfield was a Black Bear. It was quite impressive to see this bear move so quickly up this steep slope, over snow and up cliffs without hesitation or issue. We pushed north, already thrilled to have seen what we had that day. It was still pretty early and the early light was streaming in nicely from the east. Looked over to our left, down over a meadow and there is an enormous Grizzly Bear. Safety and I just stopped and watched until it slowly walked away showing no concern of our presence. It was an ideal distance and circumstance,neither of us had seen a Grizzly Bear before. This Grizzly was about 100yds away and the light coming in from the east was a prefect highlight to it and the grassy meadow it traversed. Soon after there would be more frequent shouts of 'hey bear' or 'riiiicola' or 'da bears' or some innapropriate random  in areas where the underbrush closes in on the trail to alert any bears of our approach. To experience these big animals in the backcountry is a very intimate and rewarding experience.

Big animal count:
8 Mountain Goats
2 Moose
1 Black Bear
1 Grizzly Bear