[Day 102] Highway Exit

You might expect — with nearly 2,400 miles of this trail and 5,100 accumulated miles of American long-distance trails on my legs — that my methods of resupply would be fleshed out in execution.

No. I walk into the store with the knowledge that I have 75 miles to Helena. The candy aisle is first: three packs of Red Vines, two large packs of SweetTart Ropes, a 40-pack of fruit snacks, 20 or so Fruit By the Foots. Dinner is easy: ramen and Idahoans. I throw in some filler material: granola bars, Cheez-It’s, tuna and salmon packets. Lastly, I am back to candy aisle for one more analysis: add a pack of Hershey bars. I leave town with a couple days extra weight in food and enough caloric energy in sugar to achieve ignition of a fusion reactor.

I grabbed a big breakfast and an ice cream cone at McDonalds as I exited town. A couple old guys talked at me as they enjoyed their McCafes. These McDonalds are truly small-town havens for the local 60-year-old expounders. My old socks, which have seen over 700 miles, have holes in the footpads, are crusty hard from dirt, skin, and sweet build up, and eternally smell of a mixing bowl of cigarette butts, apple cider vinegar, and dog vomit. A new pair of socks from Murdoch’s to get me to Helena was a critical piece of gear.

The brief walk along Highway 1 out of town was breezy — wide shoulder and people honking to root me on. Then, I got to the Highway 43. I see the southbounders’ dislike. The lane line was the end of the pavement with deep grassy drainage ditches on either side of the highway. It was a seven mile game of walk the white line as long as possible, then jump into the ditch 20 or so times per mile to avoid 70mph passing cars. Still, I disliked the road walk into Silver City of New Mexico much more.

After Highway 43, I briefly walked a front road to Highway 90 passed a Montana State Psychiatric Hospital. They should have put this at the start of the trail. After the Highway 90 underpass, I eventually hit dirt roads — Morel Street, which took me to Dry Cottonwood Road, which will intersect to the CDT. Of course, it rained on and off with aggressive side winds for a few hours as I made my way on the roads, no tree coverage in sight.

A guy in a truck driving out of the mountains reported that there was a deer carcass, likely a grizzly cache, about four miles ahead not too far off the road. I proceeded with the goal of getting at least a few miles passed the fork in the road where the remains were. I was on edge in that area, hollering quite a lot. A couple miles later, I powered down the four McDoubles I packed out from town while walking to camp. Sorry, Mr. Grizzly – looks like you’ll have to stick to your rotting dear flesh tonight.

My camping options were quite limited along Dry Cottonwood Road, and I wasn’t going to make the CDT intersection today. I hiked on into the night until a flat spot became available. I pitched my tent as a decent rain started coming down. After hanging my bear bag, I sheltered for the night.

Signing off,

Zeppelin / fReaK (ON a leash)