[Day 80] Dubois

I woke up, grabbed my bear bag from the trees down the way, and hit the trail walking by 7am. I continued on my ridge walk with clear views east along a dirt road. That dirt road took me back to the CDT in a few quick miles.

The hiking today was fairly uneventful. The terrain jumped from deep forest to open meadows and sagebrush pastures. There was, however, a tension in the air — likely more a tension created by the mind than the conditions. This was now serious grizzly country. Between Lake of the Woods and Highway 26, the grizzly population has boomed, largely due to the cattle grazing that provides easy food supply for the bears. It’s become so significant that onlookers from Highway 26 spot bears regularly.

I took an alternate route today that was once the old CDT beginning at Sheridan Pass. The new CDT appeared minimally developed; the old CDT was in rough shape as well. The old CDT follows more closely to the true divide and was shorter, so that made the decision for me. I bushwhacked through burn area for a while and made some off trail short cuts until I reached the dirt roads that brought me to Togwotee Pass at Wyoming Highway 26. I sang along to the Red Hot Chili Peppers through the grizzly territory; I figured the funky beats and lyrics of such a sing-along were bizarre enough to scare most humans — add to it the appearance of sun-burned, curly-haired freak with a pungent sweaty smell and not a thing is going to want to touch me.

After 29 miles, I hit Highway 26 around 5:30pm and was hitched to Dubois in ten minutes by Chris, a lovely local woman. She dropped me at the local barbecue joint, and, per usual, I went over kill. They had a 12 rib meal, which in my head was one rack of ribs, but was really two. I guess the leftovers will be second dinner.

After dinner, I made the grocery store for more calories and a few candy items for my next stretch. Then, I attended the laundromat, where I met Norm, a CDT hiker from the year 2013. The trail was a whole different ball game back then — parts were still being built, and Norm often hit dead ends on new trail. GPS systems were in infancy, and paper maps navigated the way. Norm offered me some guidance for the Wind River High Route when I return to do it, so we exchanged contact information. He gave me a hitch over to the St. Thomas Episcopalian Church, which offers hikers a room and cots. It’s a beautiful thing to find small town churches kindly and generously supporting hikers. A church in Burney on the PCT offered me one of the finest and funnest stays on that journey.

I downed lots of soda and tried my best to finish off my rib dinner. Tomorrow, I’ll grab my resupply box and new shoes from the post office, eat a hearty breakfast, maybe get a shower in, organize campsite permits, and hit the trail towards my entry into Yellowstone National Park.

Signing off,

Zeppelin / fReaK (ON a leash)