Day 23-26: Anaconda Cutoff

July 14-17; Mile 327-392

Day 23

Before heading back to trail, we all stopped at the post office to mail boxes to a small town in Idaho. Mike picked us up at 8 and then drove us back to MacDonald Pass once we were done. It was incredibly helpful to get around town quickly, and we were back hiking before 10 am. 

The sun was already high in the sky when we started hiking up the right road (after I promptly took the wrong one). My new pants felt thick and hot despite the wispy fabric. We passed large swaths of forest where the floor was littered with broken-up tree detritus, but all the dead standing trees had been removed. It turned out to be fire mediation work that had been ongoing since 2023. 

I was soon drenched in sweat, yet had to parcel out my water carefully; we were starting out with a 12-mile dry stretch and it was only going to get hotter as the day wore on. When I paused in some shade and the flies inevitably appeared, I was relieved to see them wandering hungrily along my pant legs without biting through the fabric. 

After another wrong turn at an unmarked junction in a meadow, where the trail was more a suggestion of flattened grass than anything else, I got to the deadfall section. Most of the downed trees had lost their rough bark, but some of the logs on the ground were prone to rolling. And at one point – as I was balanced atop three crisscrossed logs about five feet in the air – the weight of my pack caused me to stagger and I started to topple. Thankfully I was able to jump down onto a patch of grass. But the impact had some extra oomph behind it, and my shin ached a bit afterward. 

Before long we came to the stretch of trail that had been closed for the Jericho fire. It was the most recent burn I had ever walked through: the trail had only been open for 4 days. The trees and dirt were pitch-black, and everything smelled of charcoal. And yet even now a few clumps of lupine and other flowers were poking up through the ash, a splash of green against the black. 

The next several miles were shadeless forest service roads with occasional CDT signs informing you that yes, in fact, you were still on the “trail.” Mostly I listened to music, daydreamed, and thought of more people to send postcards to. 

Handy and Strix called me over to a shady spot beside a pond, our home for the night. The water was not the coldest, but it was definitely the most frog-filled source I had drunk from so far. Lark caught up soon after, and we relaxed in the shade after our short day. Finally I had pants that kept the flies off and didn’t chafe until I bled; the next two days were forecast to be cold and rainy; I had not experienced a resurgence of stabbing pain in my shin; we were almost to the end of the first map for the hike. I was even getting used to the long road walks. In short, things were looking up. 

Day 24

Just as we were drifting off the night before, Poncho arrived in his truck. He had hiked with the large group on the PCT in 2022, and since he was now living near Anaconda, he wanted to provide some trail magic while we were nearby. He and his girlfriend brought pancake mix, bacon, fresh fruit, coffee (and beer). I woke up in a cloud to the sounds of things cooking on the Coleman stove, and we all gathered around in the drizzle to enjoy a hot breakfast. 

Around 7:30 I packed up and started to hike through the gray mist. Everything was muted; no birds sang, no frogs croaked. The temperature had dropped from the upper 80s to the upper 40s, and my legs were soon soaked from the knees down. 

The trail finally left the road and headed back into forest, where the trees grew thick and close, the ground was awash in greenery, and the dirt trail was soft and fairly flat. The views from the occasional talus slopes were a featureless expanse of gray. It felt like being at home in the mountains near Seattle.

Handy, Strix, and I stopped for lunch beside a running creek, our plans to go 20-22 miles dissolving in the face of hours of penetrating wet. Instead we settled on a nice campsite at mile 18 near a lake. After 20 minutes I was shivering in my puffy and rain jacket, and I quickly packed up and started hiking. It took a mile before my frozen fists began to unclench. 

After more rocky stretches of uphill, the trail led once again through a series of acrobatic blowdowns. Nothing seemed charred, and I wondered if all the deadfall was a result of beetle kill, wind, or both. The forest was absolutely littered, like a box of popsicle sticks had been upended over the trees. 

After some shimmying through the trees, I came to a large meadow where the blowing fog gave visual shape to the wind. I passed the lake and found Handy and Strix sitting beside the trail. We walked through the grass to a sheltered site big enough for 10; there were horizontal logs for laying out gear in the hopes of drying. Everyone quickly set up their tents and bundled into their sleeping bags. 

Less than an hour later, a large group came tramping through the site. I peered out from the edge of my tent, but all I could see were shoes. And then I heard breaking branches and the sound of sawing – no way these were thru hikers. 

When we finally left our tents and joined them around the glowing campfire, we were shocked to learn that they were our first NOBO CDT hikers! Machete, Seven, Extra Virgin, Chill, and Firecracker had all started in early-mid April and flipped north when the snows in Colorado became impassable. They had passed 15 SOBO hikers today alone – and we had only seen one other person all day. 

People dangled their frozen feet near the fire, arranging socks and shoes near its warmth (and singeing/melting some of them). We ate dinner and talked around the fire until after 9. 

Chill was a retired marine with an interest in blacksmithing, and he had made himself an actual crown to wear upon completing his Triple Crown (AT, PCT, CDT). Machete and Seven were both in their sixties and faster than I was. Firecracker – a British woman – talked about going to the rodeo in Dubois and how she had wanted to tell everyone,“Actually this _is_ my first rodeo.” And then when she got a picture with two cowboys, they ended up being Australians. We bid goodnight to the fun group, with hopes to see them all again in Leadville for the CDT Trail Daze event. 

Day 25

I started my day with cold, wet socks and cold, wet shoes. The sky was still misty as I walked through the trees, though the day promised sun later. After a mile I passed a collection of bones beside the trail – perhaps deer or elk, they looked like leg bones. 

After several miles of meadows and blowdowns, the trail crested a rise and passed into fields of sagebrush. I had service at last and called Dov for a bit before stopping at the next water source. Handy proposed a lunch spot at mile 13, and as the skies cleared and the sun came out, we all anticipated the chance to dry out our sodden gear. 

About a mile from our lunch spot, I heard a strange noise through the trees. My head whipped to my left, and I peered through the cover. It was a grouse doing a full mating display! Strix and I both watched in fascination at the neck plumage and fanned-out tail feathers. 

Our lunch spot had a spring-fed cow trough and wooden fences for hanging out our gear to dry. Another hiker was eating in the shade of a nearby tree, a German woman named Sunshine Bandit. She talked about doing the PCT southbound and hiking alone for 19 days straight in the desert. 

We decided on a camp spot – another 11 miles, bringing the total for the day up to 24. I hoped I would make it before 7pm, although it was still light out past 9:30 each night. 

The trail led through more sagebrush fields while the views to the other peaks nearby were forested. Three foot tall thistle plants lined the track, their purple flowers erupting in a spiky ball. I stopped in a patch of grouse wortleberries – a new one Sprinkles had shown us – and ate my fill. They were like teeny red huckleberries. 

After 21 miles my feet started to drag. We had left the official CDT and were now walking on dirt roads toward the town of Anaconda. The road, while relatively flat, was often covered in a layer of small rocks that ground up my feet and shifted underfoot. I swerved into the few clumps of shade along the edges of the road, slogging my way through the final few miles before camp. 

Strix and I both soaked our feet in the tiny stream beside our tenting spot for the night. My feet were buzzing from 12 hours of hiking, and the callouses along my heels were ballooning outward with inner blisters from the hot weather. 

As I lay in my tent and the shadows gathered around us, I listened to the nighthawks swooping and calling to each other through the still, night air.

Day 26

With many miles of road walking ahead of us, I set my alarm for 5:15 am. Lark was already breaking down his tent as I started to pack up my quilt and sleeping pad. Handy and Strix walked by with their food bags; everyone was getting an early start to beat the heat.

For the first two miles I read my book on my phone while walking – Strix laughed when she passed me and told me not to fall in a pothole. The sun finally leaked across the road at 7:30, and the temperature rose from there. 

The road passed through meadows and cow pastures, private property signs and hunting registers. After five miles I came to a frontage road and called Dov to arrange for my next pair of shoes to be mailed to Idaho. And then spent the next few miles chatting with my mom. After weeks of minimal cell service, it was a nice change to be connected again. 

I came to the underpass at I-90 and spotted the others trying to hitch. A car pulled up just as I got there, and we all piled into the back, cramming our packs around a stroller and car seat. Our driver was a Jamaican woman named Alicia who was a delight. When she found out we had started at the Canadian border and were walking to Mexico, she cried out, “Y’all don’t own a car? You don’t know how to take a plane??” And then she found out 3/4 of us were engineers. “Those are good-paying jobs. And you quit your jobs – to walk?!” She shook her head. “I’m sorry for your life choices.” We all laughed our way to Anaconda, telling her about other hikes we had done, answering her questions. When Lark said one of the reasons for hiking was to find himself, she was quick with a “I already found you right here.” It was one of the best hitches so far, and when she dropped us off in front of the hostel, she got Lark’s number and said she wanted to take us to dinner. 

In town by 10:30, we booked a room at the hostel and went to find food. Lark had run out early, saying that this morning he had counted his remaining food: 14 pumpkin seeds. Back at the hostel, I found Jessica’s name in the log book and sent her a message, assuming she was long gone. But she was still in town! And there was a big event at the hostel that evening – Hikers Night – with free food, drinks, and a raffle. We had just happened upon it, and thankfully there was still room at the hostel. Which, when it comes to the hostels (and hotels) that I’ve stayed in, this was the Four Seasons of hostels.