[Day 112] Sidney Fire Reroute

My day in the Bob Marshall Wilderness was one of my greatest days on the trail.

I woke up around 7am, took my bear hang down, ate a couple 3 Musketeers chocolate bars for breakfast, and started up the 2200-foot climb to Switchback Pass. The pass is appropriately named — what an invigorating and engaging climb.

Atop Switchback Pass, I took in a view of the jutting features of the Trilobite Range. These mountains are like continental drifts — I imagine them like the edge of an overlapping tectonic plate with a plateau-style cliff edge. Up close, these mountains are cliffs. From a distance, their slanted, overlapped layering is apparent. I felt a bit guilty about bypassing the CDT section on the other side of Kevan Mountain. I should have hiked up the Red Shale Creek drainage, followed the escarpment from Lookout Mountain to Kevan Mountain, hopped over Kevan Mountain to Switchback Pass, then continued along the Trilobite Range. What’s done is done; at least I have an excuse to return to the Bob Marshall.

Dropping down from the pass, I came to Dean Lake and an enthralling view of Pentagon Mountain. The Trilobite Range is incredible.

Ahead of me, the Sidney Fire burns on and east of trail with heading south towards Badger Cabin. The USFS closed 15 miles of the CDT from Badger Creek to Highway 2 with no recommended reroute; the USFS essentially said of the closure, “Look at a map of the Bob Marshall and figure out a way around our closure.” I doubt they would care if I hiked straight through fire, but my lungs might hate me for it. My plan to merge with the CDT from the Spotted Bear Alternate then drop off via Trail 179 was washed — I was going to follow the Trilobite Range further via Trail 241. I invented the following reroute:

Trail 241 (Chair Mountain) → Trail 173 → Trail 155 (Big River) → Trail 154 (Morrison Creek) → Skyland Road → Highway 2 → CDT at Summit Campground

I approximate the reroute to be 45 miles, which is comparable if not more efficient than the parallel mileage on the CDT. I’ll know better when I get to Summit Campground tomorrow.

I passed below Trilobite Peak and around the Trilobite Lakes — gorgeous as one would expect. The route around Gables Peak and Chair Mountain was routine and pleasant. After Chair Mountain, I dipped to Dolly Varden Creek and followed the trails to Big River and Schafer Guard Station and Airstrip. I was excited to see a bush plane landed at the airstrip; I was graciously welcomed into the guard station where the camp hostess provided me a glass of orange juice, cookies, and a friendly white lab to pet. This was a great way to break my 48-hour hiatus from people. I haven’t acknowledged this, but Montana has been very rewarding with solitude. The past weeks have regularly entertained two to three day periods without seeing another person.

I left the station pondering a life of cabin solitude in the wilderness with a one-man dog. I figure I have many years of putting my mechanical engineering degree to good use before I may submit to the hermit life. The bush plane revved her engines and took to the skies just as I started down the Big River Trail for a few more miles.

I walked on, cruising dry forests alongside the Middle Fork Flathead River. A few miles before camp, I cooked up some dehydrated refried beans and drank them — yes, drank — on my way to camp. After 30 miles, with a sore throat from a day of smoke and an itchy scalp from a day of vinegar sweat, I called it quits.

Signing off,

Zeppelin / fReaK (ON a leash)