CDT Day 106 (9/1/23)

Miles 2542.8 (Red line 2887.2)- 2569.6 (Red line 2912.5) (26.8 miles)

Verbatim

I’m walking with Twister and Billy the Kid. They kindly let me onto their permit for the first section of Glacier. We’ll see what arrives tomorrow in Many Glacier. I’m having too much fun hanging with my friends. So, there’s not much to write. There was hardly time to write the last few days. Too damn social. Almost done. Feels good.

The ranger named Tatyana gave me a hitch today! She helped us out with permits too. :) I also met someone named Evelyn today who was so incredibly attractive and fun. But, she’s married. Welp.

Two passes today. Great views. I saw the rangers I’d met yesterday again today. That was really fun! No Bears… Maybe tomorrow there will be some wildlife. Also, I could be done in two days! Or four…

My shoes are a wreck and are actually kind of painful. And hanging my backpack today was a funny and hilarious experience. Twister helped. He said he loved watching people hang their food for the first time. He also remarked at how heavy it was to hang the backpack w/food and all the trash.

I lost a raisin bag over the edge of a mountain today. The wind took it from the top of my bag as I tried to open and reorganize for a snack. There were only a few raisins left, and it was a big bag. It originally held two pounds worth of raisins, purchased in Augusta for the Bob. I tried climbing down to get it and caused a mini landslide. I’d hoped it was just over the edge. I wonder who will ever find it, or where it will go. Certainly it’s been bitten by some Marmot for the sweet residue of raisin inside the bag.

There was also a female trail runner keeping just ahead of us (It’s a great joy to every thruhiker I’ve met to be so fast at walking mountains that we catch up and/or keep pace with trail runners). Running, no Bear spray, and she ducked off the opposite side of the pass from our reroute. She went into the “Bear activity closure” side of the pass. The portion of the CDT which we were rerouted around. Naughty lady! haha.

Our camp was by a lake in a burn. The lake at dusk and dawn was beautiful. And you could hear an Owl across the lake. It was stunning. There were two older men at camp. One from Boston and one from Seattle.

Oh yeah, Twister, Billy, and I cracked lots of jokes during the orientation this morning. That was fun. And the old guy was so grumpy and annoying.

Post Note

So I got to the ranger station at half hour before opening with Tatyana and there were already two people there in line. People were desperate for permits I tell you. There was an old guy and there was Evelyn. I thought they looked alike and asked if they were family. They weren’t, but Evelyn was really cheerful and up beat. We started chatting and I really enjoyed myself. Maybe my natural flamboyant excitable energy comes on too strong. If it did, I apologize. Evelyn definitely dropped a reference to her husband five minutes into our conversation. Oh. My bad. facepalm

Even Tatyana, whom had become my homie over the last 24 hours, made a comment about it. She popped the window open as she opened and said something like, “feels like a first date out here”. facepalm I turned and said, “well it’s not”, and then saw Evelyn visibly relax from the corner of my eye. Leave it to me to make it all weird. Yes Evelyn was an exciting person to meet. No I was not planning a wedding. Anyways, about that time Billy showed up too. The old dude, clearly left out of my attention, had disappeared (at least as far as I knew). Billy is quite the attractive young man with a scoundrel’s devilish smile. He felt to me like the Han Solo of the trail. When he walked up and started chatting up Evelyn and I like old friends I knew we’d all be ok. We were invited in, no we were demanded, to watch an informational video about how to make sure we knew how to hang our food and camp in a park full of “scary” Bears. Billy hadn’t watched the video, but talked his way out of needing to watch the video by spur of the moment coming up with all the right answers to an on the spot quiz by Tatyana. He’s a god. I, however, wanting to be amused by spending more sociable time, convinced Billy and Twister to watch the movie with me anyways. Twister could have cared less. Billy was game to stay.

At some point during our instruction the old guy showed up and complained really loudly that he wanted to go. Tatyana halted everyone else’s program because this dude was complaining. It was ridiculous how much of a toddler he was being. But hey, the man needs his parking spot I guess. After the handling the older dude everyone cheered Tatyana and we all joked that we would write her boss recommendation letters about how awesome she was. Everyone else left. But I asked for that form, and I filled it out. I told Tatyana’s superior, in writing, that Tatyana was awesome, was super helpful, handled a nasty American male quite professionally, and deserved to be compensated accordingly with “something cool” like a raise or a new puppy. Tatyana thought it was funny. I have no idea what her boss thought of that letter. But I hope they got a good laugh out of it. The puppy thing is definitely along the lines of my humor, but everything is accentuated when one is only a few days away from accomplishing a major goal. I was so happy to be walking in Glacier with a permit.

The rest of the day was scenic and lovely in the way a national park is. Funny people to watch rubbing sun tan lotion on. Hikers huffing their way up a climb which the three of us literally flew up. We ran into the two rangers I’d met the day before. I’d chatted them up because I knew, if worst came to worst, I might run into them while dashing into the park without having a permit. There was a solid chance that if I couldn’t get onto Billy or Twister’s permit I would have gone with them anyways. And then I’d need all the bonus points possible to stealth by the rangers. And sure enough, when I saw them the next day they didn’t even ask. This despite the fact that they’d watched me fail to get a permit the evening before.

We also saw a naked dude walking in the park. He was hiking with his backpack on and a baseball cap. He pulled that cap right down where he needed it as we passed by. He was a young attractive dude. Mid thirties maybe? After we passed him we immediately passed two younger women. Billy had the audacity to say something like, “sorry my dad is so weird” as we walked past. It was hilarious. I have no idea why that dude was naked. Hike naked day is July 1st if I’m remembering correctly. It definitely isn’t September 1st. Plus. Naked in a national park? Risky! I’m thinking about what the militarized ranger in Yellowstone would have to say about something so scandalous.