[Day 91] Guthooked

I’ve been tracing a fishhook on the map since leaving Yellowstone as I route the Montana-Idaho border. Finally, it feels as if my direction vector is towards northern progress, rather than predominantly westbound travel. But, after the upcoming couple hundred miles of northbound travel, I’ll have brief eastbound work around Anaconda area before I make for the home stretch of this trail. I feel the pull towards the border. I’ve swallowed the bait and the guthook is set, and the line is yanking me to shore. The terrain provides the resistance as I’m reeled in through its endless, rugged undulations and meandering. Needless to say, this fish is still in deep water, but it’s certainly caught — this fish is only lost if the line catastrophic fails and snaps.

Here’s another analogy for where I’m at with the trail. I’m still finishing the main course and my belly is quite full. But, dessert is right around the corner, and there’s no way I’m not going to hastily indulge. New Mexico was the appetizer: I don’t know. Let’s say chips and salsa. Colorado and Wyoming were the prime rib steak. Southern Montana-Idaho are the sides — maybe some filler like mashed potatoes and broccoli that I’m slowly, somewhat regretfully eating. Northern Montana is dessert, and I don’t know exactly what the item is, but it’s sure to have a cherry on top.

My tent was an oven this morning. Unsurprisingly, the heat was from the 9am sun cooking my enclosure. Along with my 11pm camp came a night of extreme itching, tossing and turning, and dreams of grizzlies coming for my food (though I am well out of dense bear territory for the time). I estimate my night was less than five hours of sleep. I decided a breakfast was in order — two servings of dark chocolate oatmeal — since my morning was all but wasted anyway.

My goal for the day was to get through the elevation changes for the day to the base of Elk Mountain — the spiky elevation map promised a day of ups and downs. I uneventfully rolled through it, sometimes cutting my own path where I saw opportunity on my map. After walking around Cottonwood Peak, the terrain turned to a cross country style ridge walk, reminding me of the Argentine Spine back in Colorado. The terrain — not the views — is like the rolling mountains of Northern Colorado, spiced up with the dryness and dirt roads of New Mexico, with a hint of Wyoming’s flat basin in connecting valleys.

After the local popular Morrison Lake, I made another long ridge walk to Elk Mountain. I grabbed water from a clean piped spring about half way up the climb atop Elk Mountain and pitched my tent on a saddle. I survived the day. Now, I needed to survive the night; my sleep has been awful. After rubbing my body with cortisone cream, I settled in and prayed for rest.

Signing off,

Zeppelin / fReaK (ON a leash)