Day 42-43: Hikers of Rohan

Aug 2-3; Mile 634-682

Day 42

After weeks of leaving camp before breakfast, I decided to change up my routine and choke down my cold oatmeal before heading out. At dawn the cows struck up their chorus of mooing, and it was the soundtrack to us packing up. Just as I donned my pack to head out, my hip belt buckle broke. Off came the pack again, and I quickly dug around for my repair kit and my extra buckle. I’d carried a replacement since breaking off one of the tines the previous summer; somehow the buckle had still held since then, for an impressive 66 days of thru-hiking usage!

Finally I left camp and began climbing over scree on a rocky section. A few miles later I saw a brown rump disappear down the trail, and my first thought was, “That was too agile to be a cow.” In fact it was a moose! I got a view of its profile through the trees ahead, and for the first time on trail I drew my bear spray. It was on the trail ahead of me, but thankfully as I approached it ran off down the slope into the forest. 

As I ascended to a saddle, I met two NOBO hikers who said they had just run into a herd of rams. From there the trail climbed into the alpine; stark grassland with massive peaks and fascinating rock formations dominated the view. The trail led straight up the side of a hill, but for once I didn’t mind the grade because it wasn’t a jeep track. I was actually on a trail in an area that felt truly remote and open. It felt like I had been transported to Rohan. 

Wooden posts and the occasional rock cairn were all we had to navigate across the sea of grass. The flattened path quickly petered out once it was about 50ft from the nearest post, and the markers were often too far apart to be helpful. The trail builders really just shrugged and said “good luck” in this section. I spent a lot of time consulting my map to make sure I was still on the route. 

All good things must come to an end, and soon the trail led back to a jeep track full of loose, slippery rocks like ball bearings. I had been on the road for maybe ten feet when my feet went out from under me and I landed hard on my backside. I yelled at the road – very productive – and clambered back upright and hiked on. 

Our lunch spot for the day was one of the Harkness Lakes, a grand name for a shadeless pond ringed with mud and cow patties. At least the stream before the lakes was rushing cold and clear, and I made sure to fill up there. 

The afternoon was filled with road walking, but my head was still up in the alpine meadows of the morning, and the miles passed without much notice. There was a whole spectrum of colors in the herds of cattle I passed, a nice break from the monochrome black angus herds I’d seen. A few of the calves were curled up at the edge of the group, fast asleep. 

The road finally led to a trailhead, and I eyed the sign about being in bear country warily. I’d been in bear country for over a month now, but something about being reminded put me on edge. Plus, the trail led through brushy sections along a loud creek: ideal conditions to surprise a bear. I made noise throughout, but I was glad once I was back into the sagebrush, with its open views in all directions. 

My head was pounding as I climbed upward, and above me the clouds began their darkening routine. It was that time of day: the final climb of the afternoon was the ideal time for thunderheads to appear. The first thunder was very distant, and I hurried along the flat, grassy saddle toward another rickety barbed-wire fence. My weak arms struggled with the enclosure before I wedged my trekking pole handle inside and used it to lever open the gate. It sprang apart like a trap latching onto its next victim, and I ran past without closing it, all the while panicking about the building storm. 

Once I was back into the tree cover, I allowed myself to look up at the sky. I had dutifully kept my hat pulled low and focused on the trail, but now I had a great view of the churning clouds with their dark bellies ready to unleash upon us. I hesitated at the edge of the trees; the route ahead led through exposed sagebrush on the side of a hill. After a quick break I decided to go for it, jogging whenever the trail descended. 

I got to Deadman Lake – our camp spot for the night – and my head was a bright spot of pain. My legs felt leaden after 24 miles, and all I wanted to do was crawl inside my tent and sleep for a year. Taxi, a talkative hiker we had met in Anaconda, was sitting beside his pack in the middle of the camping area, seemingly waiting for someone or something. It turned out that he had lost his power bank, drained his phone battery navigating through the Rohan grasslands, and gotten lost this morning trying to hike without any GPS. He had managed to go 3 miles, visiting the same trailhead twice on accident, before deciding to stay put until another SOBO hiker showed up. 

Strix showed up soon after, and we both let him charge his phone a bit from our power banks. Meemaw also hiked past with Dump Gloves, though there was still no sign of Lark, and there had been more bursts of thunder beyond the next ridge. We figured he had gotten stopped by the storm, a fact he confirmed when he finally showed up around 9:30 pm. 

Day 43

As I was stretching before breakfast, I glanced across the lake and saw a brown shape moving down the hillside. Strix was already moving inside her tent, and I whisper-called to her, “Strix, there’s a moose coming down the trail!”

We watched as it picked its way down the slope, pausing to browse some of the bushes, and then stepped into the shallow edge of the lake. It was a large cow, and I watched it eat its way along the lakeshore while finishing up my own breakfast. 

The trail led up through more sagebrush before switchbacking up to the divide again, with its ever-present double track. I listened to music for the next several miles to break up the monotony of walking along a dirt road through dry grassland. Strix and Meemaw passed, quickly turning into little dots on the horizon. 

And then a little shape waddled onto the road in front of me and turned its black-and-white striped head to inspect me. It was a badger! It ducked its head and then turned tail and scampered up the road – in the exact direction I was headed. I had a great view of the short, squat body, about the size of a marmot, as it frequently paused to check whether I was still there before hurrying off again. After ten minutes of unintentional pursuit, it careened off the road and slipped below the barbed-wire fence, and then galloped away like a miniature bear. I was absolutely tickled; I don’t remember ever seeing a badger before in my life!

When the route finally led away from the road, I had the joy of traversing grassland that barely had a trail built into it. Each step landed on a differently shaped tussock which sent my ankles bending every which way. It was slow-going and required more attention than usual to make sure I didn’t roll anything. I plowed on past the cow trough where people were stopping for lunch, annoyed by the grass and determined to have a short afternoon. The trail descended into an aspen grove, and the mixture of the non-drought-tolerant aspens with the dry, scraggly sagebrush stuck with me. The two environments seemed out of place beside each other, especially when I came across the burned stretch of sage bushes. Nothing remained but the blackened branches, a stark contrast to the fluttering greenery of the aspens. 

I had lunch beside a creek with Meemaw, and my latest lunch experiment was a bit of a failure; the ratio of couscous to everything else was too high, and the vegetables hadn’t rehydrated fully. I forced down half of it before putting the rest into a ziplock deep inside my food bag. 

Strix caught up and we hiked up through alternating sagebrush and pine forest before passing back into grassland where the path was just a collection of wooden posts without any real track. The cows were the only trail maintainers up here it seemed. 

Dark clouds were closing in above us as we wended our way over the rough ground toward the viewpoint of the Red Conglomerate Peaks. I took most of my pictures on the move, determined to reach the stand of pines ahead. 

We paused in the cover at a nice sitting log. Two minutes later the rain began. We huddled in the mediocre shelter as rain turned to sleet. Thunder was rumbling nearby, and we still had the last steep ascent of the day ahead of us. I looked on the map and saw a camp spot 0.1 miles away. We booked it through the downpour and hid among the dark branches of the pines, waiting for the storm to pass. 

I quickly set up my tent in the cavern-like space between the trunks, while Strix huddled in her puffy, optimistically saying we wouldn’t be there for long. The rain lightened and then came more heavily, and the views through the trees blurred into a misty gray as the storm was upon us. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled nearby. There were more rumbles in the distance, and I finally got out my quilt and curled up inside to stop myself from shivering. 

After an hour and a half we were able to pack up and see the clouds clearing. Strix and I hiked up over the last mile of ascent, she pushing onward while I dawdled and gaped at the views around me. I so rarely got the chance to soak up the views from the high places we crossed, so often was I running from building thunderstorms. 

In the post-storm clarity (and the euphoria of that sweet release from fear), I was coming to love the CDT for what it was, with all its beauty and its bullshit. 

We descended along a grassy ridgeline before reaching our camp spot for the night among a stand of trees beside a little creek lined with fresh cow deposits. We made dinner in the gathering gloom after a long day, whispering since Dump Gloves was camped nearby and had said he was waking up at 4 am. 

Despite the slanted sleep spot, the cow shit everywhere, the rough grassy traverses and the boring miles of road walking – despite it all, I couldn’t wait to see what lay ahead along the divide, in this land so similar and yet so very different from home.