Journal Aug 9 – The Pintlers are Coming, the Pintlers are Coming!
Actually the Pintlers are here and they’ve been coming for a long time. While walking on the ridges around Butte, we had views of the Pintlers from many places. The closer we would get the larger they would loom. In fact they created an imposing facade. And many local people we met would extol the virtues and beauty of the Pintlers, so they loomed large in our imaginations as well.
Yesterday, we arrived at the Pintlers portal, Upper Lake Seymore; but today we finally arrived at the crest of the divide in The Pintlers, beginning a stretch of ridge walking which will take us through the Pintlers and beyond, all the way to Yellowstone.
The CDT reaches Goat Flats, on top of the divide and, at 9,400 feet, the highest point on the trail so far. The feeling of being back amongst “real” mountains is strong. Nearby peaks jut into the clouds, fragile alpine plants blanket the passes, deep, glaciated valleys seperate sheer walls of rock. The CDT follows the divide fairly close, deviating around the more technical ridges, dipping into lake basins and climbing again to ridgeline passes. The divide itself follows no rules, except that water on one side goes to the Pacific and water on the other ends up in the atlantic. We found ourselves doing a lot of up and down today, over 4,500 feet of elevation gain. Some of the views were simply stunning.
The weather remains unsettled and we dodged several thunder showers. The sky would be clear, then cloud up quickly. A few rumbles later some raindrops would fall and we would head for the sheltering embrace of low lying tree branches. The rain would pass and the skys clear off completely. This pattern repeated itself four times. The last cloudburst included some pea size hail. We waited on a couple of these to make sure we could safely ascend and cross the next pass.
Forward progress slowed from both the unnexpected breaks as well as all the photo opportunities that such dramatic clouds bring. We struggled against fading light and a final 1,000 foot ascent to make it to Warren lake. He guidebook author describes Warren lake as the nicest lake along the CDT in Southern MT. We were as anxious just to find a decent campsite as we were to check out the accuracy of the lake’s rating.
Dinner by moonlight again. A not so bashful deer wandered around our camp, while a salamander slithered into the tent until properly escorted out.
Miles 18.1
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