Step challenge, anyone?

7 days. 133 miles. Here I sit on a bed in the first hotel we saw in Eureka, Montana. We checked in at the neighboring gas station checkout counter… but it’s absolutely wonderful. We’d planned to make it here in 6 days, but on this trail I’m not sure we could have. I expect to hear a lot of “we told you you should have been running the month before you left,” and please trust me when I say, I KNOW!! But despite all the blood, sweat, tears(only two of the seven days), snot, and pus, it really has been great. I won’t take you through every hour of every day. I’ll just hit the important bits. August 8th was our first day on trail, two days after when we wanted to start. Back country passes proved to be more difficult to get than we thought. We were left with either starting on the 8th with a 27 mile day or wait until the 11th for a much shorter mileage day. We went with the long day because, “we can handle it.” We did handle it…. as best we could. About halfway through the day Wes said, “Maybe it wasn’t the BEST idea, but it was AN idea.” We were struggling to push on. For me, the tears came around mile 20. We went over a steep 3,000 foot pass about mid day and my legs were shot trying to carefully and quickly get back down the steep pass to camp. After my tears dried up, the mosquitoes hit, more mosquitoes than I think I’ve ever seen. 3 miles to camp was all we had left but our legs were fighting us and so were the mosquitoes. We limped into camp at a rapid rate and Wes beelined it to lay down in the river and get a reprieve from the mosquitoes. Shortly after dinner, we went to bed, but the mosquitoes hadn’t let up. Even though I’d slept in my bug net and hat, I woke up with 19 mosquito bites on my chin. Just my chin guys…. can you imagine what the rest of me looked like? Gnarly, itchy bites were everywhere on my body. The tiny town of Polebridge, MT was only two days away and though we hadn’t originally planned on stopping there, we decided we’d try and find a large bug net online to go over our shelter as we didn’t have anything but a tarp to sleep under and have it sent to the next town. I also desperately wanted bug spray. Day two was the same with big passes and mosquitoes, but now big ol blisters were making an appearance. I was waking like I just learned how to and toddlers don’t cover ground very quickly or gracefully. I’d already used all the blister-fixer-upper I’d brought with me, so that gave us yet another reason to stop in Polebridge. Bug net, bug spray, and bandaids were now on the list. By the afternoon on the third day we had exited Glacier National Park, but not before one last swim in one of Glacier’s countless, clearest, most turquoise and refreshing lakes I’ve ever seen. Wes and I had also started writing a song involving various rhythmic clapping and the words ‘Hey Bear.’ Our plan is to record it once we have more lyrics and sell it as a package deal with a can of bear spray as a Bear Aware promotion. People can carry the spray and sporadically play our song to warn bears they’re approaching. It’s important for you to be bear aware, but it’s also important for the bear to be aware of your presence 😉 Polebridge was our next stop that day and another item has been added to our list…. beer. It was 102 degrees that day and a beer sounded most refreshing. I also had the idea that I could soak my blisters in pitchers of beer while I sipped on one so the blisters would get drunk and no longer feel their pain. It seemed like a foolproof plan until I drank half my beer and quickly fell asleep in a shady patch of grass. Now I’ll never know if blisters get drunk. I did manage to buy bug spray and bandaids before my impromptu nap, but Polebridge is a town consisting of a bar, mercantile, and a handful of cabins. Needless to say, they did not have cell service or free WiFi. I napped, helped eat a pizza, and then Wes and I were off to find a camp spot hoping the mosquitoes would cut us some slack. After day three, the days started to blur together. All I know is that one of the days was the worst of them all. It started with us walking in circles, unsure of which trail/road to take. We have come to find it’s not easy to navigate this trail as it’s not well marked and the map can be misleading. We got ourselves on the right trail and had only two miles to water. Our small off trail jaunt to get down to the river turned into a 2 hour bushwhack through neck high, thick shrubs. We only covered about half a mile, but had gone up, down, then back up the face of the mountain to get ourselves back in the trail. It’d be smooth sailing from there you’d think, but nope, not that day. We went over 4 peaks, some were near vertical climbs. Who needs switch back anyways? PANSIES! THATS WHO! The last one we went over was a burn zone. Fallen, charred trees covered the trail. Wes suggested I do my best to not touch the toasted trees because they’d turn my hands black. I said, “okay,” and here we are a few days later, my legs and arms are still black. In my defense, though, some of the fallen trees were above crotch level. How was I to get over them without touching them, even with Wes’s assistance? Camp finally came after an excruciatingly long day. I ate and passed out within an hour of sitting on the ground. The days after that were more of the same. A 20 mile, hot and dry day with a long road walk brought us to our first town stop this afternoon for a much needed shower and some rest. Fires have closed trail sections behind us. Now we have to look ahead and see what damage the fires further out have done. Wish us luck!

“You can’t give up and go back to the car because there’s no fucking car to go back to.” – me, trying to get myself through the longest of passes

Our first morning on trail, approaching the first pass.

We met some lovely fellow west bound (webo) PNT folk.

The lighting was most excellent that night. This is one of many beauties.

Wes sitting in the shade provided by a neato fire lookout. Too bad the smoke was so thick we couldn’t see much…

I hit my first 100 miles on a thruhike! I also experience my first free poo outside. I don’t have a picture of that, though Wes did offer to take one for me. What a guy.