CDT Day 73 (7/30/23)

Miles 1783.6 (Red line 2007.2)- 1801.8 (Blue line 15.3) (18.2 miles)

Verbatim

I walked over 1800 miles today! Nice… It was a glorious sleep last night, and I awoke feeling quite content and rested. I stared up at the pine trees for a good while, enjoying the dark grey clouds which were overhead. Then I saw the orange glow of the sun and knew it was time to get up. I’d walked past so many tents the night before, but this morning I saw no one for a good time. It was nice! Haha.

The trail, disappointingly, was the Mack’s Inn Alternate. It was a boring road walk along active and closed and gated forest roads. Seeing the red line off to the right as it wound single track through the trees was so tempting, knowing it would go over some awesome looking mountains. This despite the Mack’s Inn alternate cutting off like fifty miles of trail.

The “gutted” forest roads were literally gutted. Every hundred yards or so would be a huge ditch and berm dug out and pitted by an excavator some ten years ago. Little trees had begun inching their way into the road side. It was peculiar though, that they ruined these roads, and so thouroughly. They’re clearly great roads to have resisted decay and tree growth for so long. All they did was connect other usable roads. Why close them? And why not just close them by installing a gate or fence or single berm at each end? It is such a problem if one carves or cuts a path around a gate? Climbing around forty of so of these berms and ditches was quite the task.

Once I got to the move populated areas I got dusted by ATVs. It’s a Sunday. Then on the road there was a surprisingly vast amount of traffic all driven by men in white shirts with a tie. Then I realized it was Sunday, 11:30, and church was out in Island Park. haha

I got to Mack’s Inn and ate at Cafe Sabor. Good fresh tasting food and salsa. Someone paid for my meal. It was great. They even had soda water to drink!

Loraine and Chuck picked me up! They filled me with stories while driving back to Ennis MT. It’s funny driving at 70 mph when I spend so much time walking. Their house is small and really beautiful. It’s got a great porch overlooking the valley and opposing mountains. They watch the horses and cattle and watering of the surrounding ranches w/binoculars. The alpine glow on the mountains. The shadows and clouds.

It was funny trying to get the wifi password. They didn’t remember it, as per usual for home owners. It’s — for future reference. haha.

Post Note

I was looking for water late into the morning on the Mack’s Inn Alternate. The miles were feeling really sluggish and slow. There are times, frequently found on road walks, when the reality of walking from Mexico to Canada just seems atrocious. I literally have to walk this road, ruts, ATVs, and everything else, until I get to the end of it. There’s no twisty turvy trail. There’s no fragrant flowers beside me. No chance of a Squirrel I spooked darting under a bush while chittering and making me laugh. It’s just me and the sun and the gravel in my shoes and this damn road designed for something inhuman.

I was ready for that water source. But the Guthooks icon didn’t match with the actual location of the watercourse. Instead you had to read the comments which warned you about how the water source didn’t match up. I’d walked to the icon before bothering to read, which was a foolish thing to do. I opened the icon and read. The comments always take a bit of decoding. They’re written from an individual’s perspective at a time and place when the plants, the light, the season, the mental acuity, the exhaustion level, the community, the priorities were all different from your own. I had a hard time figuring it out and got confused. I walked back a quarter mile because a comment said the water was before its icon on the map. I really wanted the water so I’d started walking before really comprehending what I had read. I read while I walked but couldn’t concentrate on the reading because now I was walking. Turns out it was a comment from a SOBO perspective, so for me the water was actually after the water icon rather than before it. So then I walked back to the water icon and then past it and then read the comments again.

I was supposed to look for a path in the woods. Which I found. I left my backpack there by the road and trusted the trail gods with its safety. Then I walked the third of a mile off trail with my bottles and filter and got water. The spring was beautiful. There were colors and followers and Bees and Birds. Sometimes while thruhiking I wish I just wasn’t a thruhiker. I pine for a time in life when I’ve put all this incessant and obsessive walking behind and just exist in these sort of spaces in love. With someone else sharing in directing the ride preferably.

Maybe a dog. A dog instinctively knows what it means to walk. They get it. They wouldn’t do it any other way. How am I supposed to share the sacred grace of sitting by a spring blanketed in wildflowers, Bees, and Birds with someone who doesn’t understand the task of needing to have walked there? Are we just supposed to buy a big truck with suspension and poor gas milage and drive up here? Yuck. Just go outside and then walk into the places where people haven’t intentionally built or sculpted things. Then you’re already there, by the spring with the flowers and the Bees and the Birds.

What I’m about to say is a total superiority complex, and definitely comes from a place of insecurity. But, when I look at all these people skiing mountains from helicopters and driving their snow mobiles and big trucks into the wilderness to run around and do crazy extraplanar things I think that maybe instead they should just try walking. Granted, I took a plane and a big truck to get to trail. And I ride in big trucks to resupply. So I guess I’m not really one to talk. But man, if more people just tried walking.