CDT Day 68 (7/25/23)

Miles 1664.8 (Blue line 16.1)- 1679.3 (Red line 1903.2) (14.5 miles)

Verbatim

I’m camped here at the South Buffalo Fork, fifteen miles out from Dubois. I could cross tonight, in fact, the river only looks to be about calf deep. That’s much different than last year when I plunged a walking stick its full length in the very sides of the river. The south fork is tame. I’m waiting because I don’t know where Pepé is. He’d planned to camp here at the river tonight (where I’m writing from). I’ve been here for an hour and he hasn’t shown up… He was only a bit behind me. He doesn’t have Bear spray and only became aware that he shouldn’t be sleeping with his food when I told him that yesterday before dinner. He was right be behind me. But where is he now? Did he roll an ankle? Get mauled by a Bear?

Big Steppah, whom I first met south of Mount Taylor SOBOing New Mexico before a flip, came walking along the trail this evening. I talked with him for a solid ten minutes, exchanging encouragement, Bear talk, and congrats (apparently he thinks he got Giardia from the water source we met at) for a solid ten minutes. I was sure Pepé would show up during that convo. But he never did. I don’t know where he is.

The mosquitoes are getting bad now, so it may be time to conclude. I’m in the heart of WY’s dangerous Bear country. So wish me luck?

It’s now the next morning (7/26) and I’ve slept in until 8am hoping Pepé would arrive. He’s still not here! Which honestly concerns me. I don’t think he got mauled by a Bear. But I do think maybe he tripped and hurt himself, or his tooth cracked open and really started giving him pain. I could see either of those things forcing him to turn back.

I slept really soundly. The mosquitoes left at some point and all was bliss. My shoes got moved during the night, and one of my socks is completely gone this morning. The other sock lay next to one of my shoes about fifteen feet from the tent. What the heck? Did a Raccoon or Coyote come and steal it? A Bear? What animal wants a sock? I was worried, even expecting for my backpack to be trashed where I’d hid it. But nope, it’s all ok. Strange wilderness in these parts…

It’s only 48 miles to my first Yellowstone Permit site for tomorrow night. Only 24 miles a day!? That’s too little. I may have to screw my permits and go further.

Post Note

Yeah. I thought Pepé was dead for sure. hahaha. He wasn’t. He’d stopped a mile short to look at the view. Passed me in the morning before I woke up and left me sleeping because he said I looked so peaceful. I think he knew just how hard sleep was for me to come by.

Big Steppah was your classic combination of a Colorado ski bum and California surfer dude. Tall, broad shouldered, blond, chiseled jaw, blue eyes and real relaxed sort of personality. It was sort of funny then that he had his Bear spray, yes, but also claimed to be packing a pretty sizable pistol in his backpack. “But, it’s in your backpack…” I thought. You won’t have time to use a pistol against anyone if you have to first take off your pack, unclip and unroll it, move aside your active mid layer which you’ve got on top, then shift aside your food bag, then grab the pistol but, oh wait, where’s the clip fallen down inside all this mess, then find the magazine, then insert the magazine, then stand up, then point the gun, and then say “Aha! BANG”. Why are you carrying a pistol? If anyone out here has the sort of body which could go intimate with a bear it’s you Big Steppah.

Contrast this with Pepé, a diminutive older man with such low body fat that his stomach was cavernous beneath his rib cage and his veins extended and pulsed whole real live centimeters away from his calf muscles as he walked. I can attest to seeing both these realities with my own eyes. Pepé might be able to run further than anything alive, but he would snap like a twig beneath a Grizzly Bear. I was shocked when Pepé said he didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to sleep with his food anymore. I remember standing with him in the grocery telling him to buy Bear spray. He said, “but why?”. Pepé articulated later that he had no fear of the animals. He was moving into their space. He was tasking them with making room for him. He had no compulsion to demand that they did so. If he was to die by a Bear that would be fine. He’d lived a good long life. His carbon footprint was large as it was. To die now would have a sort of rightness.

I thought Pepé was strange. Now I believe he was prophetic. I agree fully with what he’s saying. There are 7 BILLION of us humans. And there will be more. If one human gets dead by an animal whose act of violence only comes as a request (if we’re listening well) for there to be enough space, enough food, enough quiet, enough clean water, enough other plants and animals for that animal’s wellbeing; well I think that’s quite fair. If a Grizzly kills a human, or a cow for that matter, we should say, “Wow. This is so sad. Let’s honor both the living and the dead. Let’s give that Grizz some space and take this time to think about the gift of life and the gift that is learning to share this life with other things that need to live”. Instead we go shoot the Grizzly Bear. “Fuck you bear”, we say instead.

Two other sort of incidental points about this day. First, the road down to Dubois is the other part of the trail I didn’t keep a continuous foot path across. I said I’d mention it earlier when we got here. So yeah. I hitched to town from the South side of the road and back to trail where I was dropped of on the North side of the road. I remember walking the should after being dropped off across from the stop sign. I looked back thinking I should go touch that stop sign. Then I felt like I just wanted to be in the woods. Nah. And off I went into the trees.

Second! I lost a sock over night while at camp. So strange. I went to bed with my shoes and socks laying just outside my enclosed tarp. When I awoke the shoes were tipped and one was moved about fifteen feet away. One of the socks was on the ground. The other sock was missing. SOCK THIEF! I swear it was a Grizzly Bear. No, I don’t know. Maybe it was a Fox or something. Someone took my sock. I asked Pepé if it had been him. He said, no, that it had not been him. Then he paused and told me he’d lost a sock last night as well. what. Double Sock Thief!