CDT2025 Book 2 Chapter 3 - Butte to Wise River

I needed to reach Wise River before the PO closed on Saturday, so I took Rt2 out of Butte. This skipped 18 miles of PUDdy, mountain bike trail. And, it turned out, it skipped it, IN THE RAIN. Of the places to skip, that’s one.

Pretty far behind with the blog of course. Terse, Pic heavy. Uploading from North Fork, ID.

Day1 – Uber in the rain

Butte sucks for hitching. I walked a little ways out of town and got lunch at a subway and whistled up an Uber. Eventually one showed up, and we drove and drove out of town until there was no cell signal left. Because there was no signal where they dropped me off, Uber didn’t know the ride was over, so it kept charging me until the driver got back into cell range. Totally lame.

Pretty much as I got to the trail, it started raining. I put the umbrella up and plodded on for about 8 miles. There was supposed to be a good water source on an old dirt road. There were the remains of an elk nearby, so I did not camp there. I have no idea what was eating elk, but I didn’t want to be anywhere near it. I ended up camping in the rain, wedged in between the few live trees that there were. You never know when a dead tree will fall or where.

The trail around Butte is generally crap. If I ever do this again I would take the Anaconda cut off, which heads west to the town of Anaconda and then south, bypassing Butte altogether. The trails are mostly multi-use, meaning mountain bikes. Bikes tear up the trail and erode it into a v-shaped groove, which is hard to walk in. Also, the trail is generally low and in the woods the whole time, so it was just this slightly up and down but mostly up wet trail.

I did not sleep well in the hotel in Butte, and I was cold. I think I fell asleep by 7:00. I woke a handful of times overnight hearing the rain on the tent, and checking for leaks, but otherwise slept probably for about 12 hours.

Day2 – roadwalking

The next day started off in the rain and fog. I did about six miles, most of the time carrying the umbrella. My feet and pants were soaked, not from the rain as much as walking through the grass and brush alongside the trail, also known as hiker car wash.

By lunch time, everything changed. My shadow found me and the sun came out just as I got to a huge upland park. All the little yellow flowers had glistening drops of water on them, so in the sun, it was like silver Christmas lights.

The trail changed over to a road walk. Up and up I went out of the park, and then down the long slow grind to the interstate. Because it was basically a jeep road, it was all rocks and gravel and not nicely packed and graded sand. My ankles and feet took a beating. There was also no water on the way down. By early afternoon, I got to a small stream, which drained under a culvert and was able to refill my water. I took a break under the interstate overpass, eating chocolate and watching the swallows buzz in and out of their little mud nests. After this was five more miles of road walk, some of it on asphalt.

The road followed the interstate, one of those sort of grody access roads that seems to go nowhere. As I got to the interchange I saw that there was a blue truck parked alongside the road, the driver staring at me. The truck was a piece of crap, complete with an ill-fitting truck cap held on by nylon straps. Very desert rat. As I walked up to it he shouted:

Hey old timer, how you doin?

I never caught the guy’s name. He was, in his words, waiting to pick up his wife’s ashes, but in the meantime he was heading down to the lake to catch a big fish and smoke some pot. Hint: if you call it ‘pot’ you’re an old timer too). He asked me if I needed any water, I said no. Weird dude. In my journal and my mind, I referred to him as Blue Truck Baldrick.

A mile or so later, I crossed mile 500. I got to a small parking area off the dirt road and had dinner. There was water there, but no more water for many miles. My plan was to eat dinner and then hike on for a few more miles, camping somewhere nice.

Day3 – up and over

I thought I smelled smoke that night, but I definitely woke up to the smell of forest fire. But it was that kind of far away forest fire smell so I wasn’t too worried. The trail wound up and through pinewoods. Kind of just grinding miles. I sat down for lunch on a log next to the trail, and as I was eating, I heard a crashing noise in the bushes. I looked up, and two big elk, antlers and all, came out of the bushes and stopped about 20 ft away from me. They stared at me, and I could see their nostrils flaring as they tried to smell what I was. I must have moved, or they must have finally decided I was not friendly, so they took off. I’m not sure how they managed to move so quickly with such big antlers, but in a flash, they were gone. I was so mesmerized I didn’t even get a chance to take a picture.

Not too long after, as I was hiking, I suddenly heard the crash of a tree falling. Just a random tree falling over for no good reason. Pretty weird.

I saw a mama grouse in the trail, no peeps. Which I guess means that she did her job well, distracting me so that the babies could scuttle away.

I also got lost. Well, maybe not lost, but I definitely couldn’t find the trail. Normally there’s a footbed pounded into the ground that you can follow, and you can usually tell that they’re are thru hikers on the trail by the type of tread prints that the shoes leave. This was a place where the trail vanished completely, and I had to both dead reckon and use my phone to find it again. I know beggars can’t be choosers, but I feel like the blazing and marking of the trail is poor in general. There will be random signs along the trail nowhere near an intersection, but then you will come to a point where four dirt roads meet, and there will be no signs on any of them to tell you which one is the trail.

It was pretty warm, and the bugs were out in force. Anytime I stopped, I had to put my head net on. So gross. But it’s an awesome hiker box score, I don’t even remember where I got it.

The trail merged in with a dirt road, of course, so I pushed on to get just short of the road into Wise River. I knew there was nothing in town for me that night, and camping is free. It was going to be an entire day where I didn’t see another human being, but right as I got to the road I saw a couple of campers along the dirt road, complete with the sound of a generator. The closest I have come to solitude so far.

Day4 – Wise River and Blue Truck Baldrick

I was at the road just after dawn, and it took 2 hours to get a hitch. Partially because of my bearded aspect, partially because there’s just no cars on these roads. The people that drove me in were locals, explaining who lived where and the history of the area and how the forest fires have changed things and how there are wolves in the hills. They pointed out that the nearest law enforcement was 60 miles away. In the words of the guy driving, if you step out of line, justice is swift. I did not press for details.

They dropped me off in the center of Wise River, population 120, which consisted of a general store, a post office, and a bar. I charged up my phone and things, drank a coffee, and eat some ice cream while talking to some people who were cycling the Great Divide. Two British people were planning to take it all the way to argentina. A mere 18,000 mi.

A couple of cool things about Wise River:

The bar is partially owned by Billy gibbons, one of the guys from ZZ top.

The only gas pump in town has a broken gauge, so you pump the gas and tell the lady inside how many gallons it reads and she works out the money on a calculator.

The post office lady just handed me my package. She said her logic was that only I knew I had sent myself something, so what would be the point in asking for id.

Just after lunch there were no more excuses to stay, so I started hitching out. I did make a quick pit stop in the bar to use the bathroom one last time. There were no lights in the bathroom, but I figured it out.

I stood there for about an hour, baking in the sun. Who should pull up, but Blue Truck Baldrick!

It turned out to be a pretty sketchy hitch. The man was either on something, or unbalanced, or both. Despite the loud truck, and open windows, he kept up a steady running commentary that I could barely hear. He was apparently from the area. Things like “that’s where I lost my virginity”, or “that guy shot my dog”, or “I blew up that guy’s mailbox”, or “that guy always tried to sleep with my sister”.

He kept suggesting we go to different places to either fish or to see interesting things, and I had to keep reminding him where I was trying to go. “I know where the f*** you’re going”, he would say, and stay the course for a few minutes. It got bizarre at the end. Thankfully, at the turnoff, there was another person taking in the sights. I shook his hand and walked away quickly while he struck up a conversation with the other person at random.

In some ways he reminded me of the Egyptian Cowboy Pimp from 2022, but a little more dangerous and a little less sane.

I decided to take the old CDT, which is a semi-official alternate. It also shaved off seven miles, which would put me at a campground for dinner. If the 20 miles I needed to do or anything like the previous 20, they were all very skippable. It turned out to be a good decision. I had gorgeous views from a dirt road high up in the valley and made excellent time. By 7:00 p.m. I had done 15 miles and was at the forest service campground.