CDT2025 Book 2 Chapter 6 – the road to Lima

Lima in a minute.

Random thoughts

Trail vs track on day 4.  The trail stopped being a trail and degenerated into a walking path through the grass if I was lucky.  The biggest problem is where the cows have walked on it making the footbed completely uneven and pockmarked with holes that you can’t see.

Contrasts – hourly – wide desert valleys, moist forests, up 500 feet into the grass and wind, down 500 feet into a wet, squelchy meadow.

NOBOs are now a thing.  Hitting the leading edge of their Bubble.

“Long days, long stays”.  Hike hard and long each day so you can zero and party in town?  Or for me, long days, short stays.

Facing/hiking south burns you evenly.  But now, hiking nearly due E cooks 1 side of your face more.  Needs to be like a rotisserie, else we’ll end up like Bele and Lokai.

Bears vs snakes.  I’ve been sleeping with my food.  At this point, I’m much more worried walking through hip high sage and accidentally stepping on a “nope rope”.

Day1 – escaping Leadore

4pm shuttle, racing the rain.  Ran into Meemaw ( from way back in East Glacier! ). Hiked out with Taxi, an unemployed 40something IT guy.  Think me, but younger and more confident.  Busted out the cookies from home, which had gone to Helena, gotten kind of lost, then redirected here.  And we’re still excellent!  Perhaps lacking any animal products, they stayed fresh?

Day2 – the Rollercoaster

Late start with Taxi, because we were behind a hill.  No sunrise alarm clock.  Did Elk Mountain, over 10000 feet, not as mych air as I’d like.

Up and down all day, 21.1 miles, less than we wanted, but when we got to the little cow pond, we were done.

Day3

22 something

“Epic camp spot” said Taxi.

Many cows

Day4

24 miler ending with a thunderstorm right overhead.  Bailed back off the ridge back up the trail into some trees.  Epic thunderstorm and hail.  Insta-thunder, and loghtning flashes BELOW me in the valley.  I will admit to being scared.

It was see your breath cold.  Eventually gave up and pitched tent on a frozen, muddy slope in the trees.  At least warmer and kind of dry.  Leaky pack cover, a little, part of quilt damp.

Bannack pass valley.  Trail turned into a track after.  Hard on the feet uneven.  Barely visible.

2 nobo hikers, 1 lady hiker and 1 French guy whose trail name was the ai ai ai sound before mariachi music.  Like, not a word but a sound.  He was very worried about bears.

Day5

Wet, slow morning after the hailstorm.  Slept cold, despite my thermal base layer.  Your quilt can’t make you warm if you aren’t warm when you get in it.  Plus the rain noise, and the dripping noises.

Skipped breakfast, needed to get moving.  Very slow morning, I think 4 miles by 10 o’clock.  I spent a good half hour in the sun drying my tent out, and eating my late breakfast.  All day long I think I was 1 meal/snack short.  Very frustrated, angry at everything.

Plus the trail sucked.  When it was even a trail. There were a lot of cow tracks and people tracks, weaving in and out of where trails were supposed to meet. And there were no signs. I spent a lot more time consulting the math on my phone than I wanted to. For some reason it was especially frustrating today.  Probably because of the hunger mixed with short rest. But also it was just shitty trail and it feels like it doesn’t have to be that way.

The phone said it was about 21 miles to the trailhead where I could walk to the highway. It also said that it was about 5,000 ft of total elevation gain. I call baloney on that second figure. Perhaps it was correct, but the trail went along high ridgelines all day, and the trail really just meant the footpath that people happen to have walked. There was no design, or layout. The path went directly up the steepest direction of every single climb and then dropped down the steepest direction on the back.

The up and down ridges seems never ending. Late in the day, I had misread the map and thought I was at the last one. Cresting the penultimate ridge, I saw that there was another one and shouted, “f*** you!!”

Beggars can’t be choosers, and I’m glad there was a trail, but it was an incredible grind all day long. Also, being on a high ridge, by definition, there is no water. There was one spring about a thousand feet off trail straight down. Because I knew I’d be camping at the trailhead, it would be another dry camp, so I made sure to fill up at the spring. It somehow added insult to injury on what was already just a really frustrating and never-ending day.P

Plus, all afternoon I was racing ahead of thunderstorms in the higher stuff.  Never the luxury of time!

When I finally reached the trailhead, I dropped my pack and said out loud, “I’m done.” I had thought about moving on farther down the dirt road to make the walk to Lima easier, but I was completely out of gas.

The pictures of the ridge don’t really do it justice. I was too busy gasping for breath to take a lot of pictures.

Day6 – into Lima

9 milestones roadwalk.  Grind!  All I can think of us town.  At least it’s 99% downhill.  Past cows, mostly living, some sadly dead.

Like the trail in Montana and Idaho, Lima is a study in contrasts. It’s an old railroad depot town, now slowly dying along the interstate. There’s a new and decent motel, a thriving gas station and truck stop, but the cabins for rent are dilapidated, and nobody stays here longer than necessary. There is a bank of Tesla Supercharger plugs next to the coffee shop, which is a trailer that is one step up from a food truck. I listened to an obvious tourist explain in great detail the type of coffee, sugar, and milk he wanted in his drink.

The one restaurant serves decent American food, including homemade blue cheese dressing on excellent salad. The waitress seems to do everything and does it well.

I’m going to stay over somewhere, possibly the rest area, which allows a 12-hour stay. Or I might go to the hotel, which also allows camping. Except nowadays, it seems to rain every afternoon, so I may stay here at the gas station under their gazebo and have another beer or two. Yes, they sell beer, and also rifles, in the gas station.

From here, it’s 100 miles to West Yellowstone, the last town in Montana!