WalkingCarrot

Deb and I are back home, at least for the time being. We left Togwotee Pass (pronounced “TOE-guh-tee”) on Sunday with the intent to spend 9 days hiking through the Wind River Mountain range.

“Togwotee” means “from here we can go anywhere”, so named for its promise and possibilities. The Absoroka Mountains to the north are eroded volcanic formations, the Wind River mountains to the south are granitic. Dubois and the Wyoming “badlands” lie to the east, while Jackson Hole and other large valleys with lots of water lie to the west. Togwotee pass is more than a geologic crossroads, it’s at a convergence of wildlife habitats, forming both natural …

Greetings from Dubois; that’s “Dew-boyzs” unless you want to get sent packing back to Paris by the local cowboys, in which case go ahead and say “Du-bwah”.

We’re closing in on 1,000 miles. But, one lesson the trail teaches is to not get too set on an expected outcome. Surprises are always in store, so it’s best to remain open to all possibilities and let the hike unfold.

During this last week, since leaving Old Faithful, we’ve continued to have cold nights, frosty morning and frozen water bottles. It’s rained, hailed and snowed some, but that’s all to be expected in September at our 7,500 to 10,000 foot elevation playground.

Southeastern …

After a little over 9 weeks and about 875 miles we are done with Montana. It was a great state and, with frequent forays the last few weeks into the wild Idaho side, it was very memorable. But it’s nice to finally be in Wyoming, although Yelowstone is, in many ways, as far removed as you can get from the rest of Wyoming. OK, we are in a state of culture shock. We saw more people in one hour on the 2 miles along the Firehole river guyser basin than we saw along all the rest of the trail from Canada! The lobby of the Old Faithful Inn has more …

From Chief Joseph Pass to Lima, the CDT follows the divide for about 225 miles as it forms the Idaho/Montana border. Our friends Sandy, Kerri and Ken met us at Bannock Pass with our resupply box, so we did not need to come down off the divide for a little over two weeks. Two weeks without email, cell phone, or any real news from the outside world. Total immersion.

In the lake basins near Homer Young’s Peak we came across carpets of wildflowers as thick and vividly colorful as any we have seen anywhere.

Sandy joined us for the 100+ mile section from Bannock Pass to Lima, a roller coaster …

From Pipestone Pass, just outside of Butte MT, to Chief Joseph Pass, just outside of nowhere but only a 45 minute drive to Darby, we walked a miniature version of the entire CDT experience. We saw trail so new that only this year’s hikers have set foot on it (and which does not yet appear inthe guidebook or on J Ley’s maps), we walked old “trail” which still follows faint jeep tracks, we walked the roads across agricultural/ranching lands, we walked across a 54,000 acre ranch now managed for wildife by MT Fish Wildlife and Parks, and, most memorably, we walked across the Picture Perfect Pintlers. Then we followed …