Soul Crushing Climbing in Southern Montana – The Trek

This morning everyone was up and moving bright and early. We have a big day ahead of us today and I wanted to get as early a start as possible. By 7am everybody was packed up and hiking. 9 Lives set out first and I wasn’t far behind her. Then the guys left shortly after me. I walked for about an hour or so and began our first climb of the day.

The climb was fairly gradual which was a good way to start the day. I was able to push through continuously without stopping. Then once I got up to the top of the climb I caught up to 9 Lives. She had found cell service and was sitting on her foam pad using her phone. I had to walk a short distance past her, but then I found service. Along with posting daily CDT blogs, I have also been making daily short videos about the trail on Instagram. When I have service I try to post one blog and one video, because the daily videos really add up!

So I sat in a spot with some bars and did some quick editing. Then in no time I had a blog and a video posted. If you’re interested in watching my daily short videos which coincide with the blogs, then you can find them on Instagram @madisonblagden. I always post my blogs first and then post the video version shortly after. Though there are way more details about our day in the blogs.

After utilizing service for a while I finally kept moving. Today we have a bunch more climbing to do and I want to make descent time. Yesterday we did 6,000 feet of climbing in 24 miles. Today we have 6,000 feet of climbing in about 31 miles. So although it may feel like we have less continuous climbing to do today, we are still doing alot.

Once I left the spot with service I began descending which was great. And the trail didn’t even immediately climb back uphill afterwards! I enjoyed a reasonable short climb and then a bit more downhill. What a treat. Even though the elevation gain was a bit easier today we had some new obstacles as well. This section of trail has a whole lot of blow downs. So we spent alot of the afternoon climbing up and around them, stepping over them, or having to get completely off trail to avoid them. It wasn’t nearly as bad as some other trails I’ve been on in the past. But it still wasn’t ideal. The whole process definitely slowed us down a bit.

After our first climb of the morning the trail took it easy on us for a bit. Then we had yet another gradual climb. It felt so much easier than yesterday though for some reason. We wound up walking for 5 hours straight before we took our lunch break. I was feeling good and didn’t want to stop. Plus, we wanted to get a substantial amount of the mileage out of the way in the first part of the day. By noon we had gone 15 miles which was amazing. That meant we only had about 15 miles to go.

Aqua and I with our matching palante packs.

The spot that we stopped for lunch was a junction toward a water source. But the source was off trail so I opted not to go down to it. I packed extra water earlier this morning intentionally so that I could avoid the extra walking to get this water. Because of that I wasn’t able to eat a hot lunch. I didn’t have enough water to cook a meal and drink to my hearts desire. So instead I ate some snacks for lunch. The last couple days my appetite has been awful. I’m excited to get to town so that I can eat a bunch of good food which I know that I desperately need.

Everybody sat in the shade for a while and enjoyed lunch. The thought of walking for another 15 miles seemed hard. It was just getting to the hottest part of the day and were hiking through a big burn scar. All day today the trail has been super hot and exposed. We could even see the next climb up ahead and it entirely exposed to the sun. That was going to be rough.

Hiking through the Anaconda Pintler Wilderness has been hard, but one of my favorite sections of trail so far.

Luckily though the upcoming climb after lunch was our last big climb of the day! That was such a relief. We would still have a bit of elevation gain, but nothing like what we have been doing. When I got back to walking it was unbearably hot but I managed. I wound up walking for about 4-5 miles before I came to the next water source. When I got there Yeehaw, Grazer, Lennon, and Narrator (previously Tom) were sitting by the water filling up. Sidequest was there as well and High Profile had filled up there and then continued along.

I decided to just grab my water and keep moving too. My energy levels were nice and high for some reason, so I needed to take advantage of that. But I only wound up making it half a mile from the creek before I came to a lake! I knew that 9 Lives and Sidequest would probably want to swim so I decided to wait for them. When I first arrived I was hot and ready to get in the lake. But after sitting and waiting for 10 or so minutes I didn’t really want to swim anymore.

A CDT marker along the trail.

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That was pretty funny because by the time that 9 Lives and Sidequest arrived I was ready to keep moving. I sat by the lake for a bit before I kept walking. There I ran some water through my hair and cooled off a bit. But for some reason I just wasn’t in the mood to hang out by the water anymore. I think part of me knew how many miles we had left for the day and just wanted to get it done. We still had about 10-11 miles remaining for the day which wasn’t light work. Right before I left the lake a bunch of other hikers arrived; Yeehaw, Grazer, Lennon, Narrator, and 3 Moons. They all wound up getting into the water with 9 Lives and Sidequest. I was a little jealous but just not in the mood to swim. Instead I kept it moving along the trail.

I walked for another couple of miles and then came to a trail “junction”. There was an alternate that you could take which only shaved off a mile of trail. But on a big day like today a mile felt like a lot. When I was looking at my map and trying to figure out where to go,  Aqua caught up to me. That worked out perfectly because this cut off wound up kind of being a bushwack. We just walked off the trail and basically cut a straight line through a marshy valley, across some rocks, and up and around some other obstacles. It was clear a lot of other hikers had done the same but clearly everyone took different routes. I was so glad not to be doing that alone. With someone else it was pretty fun.

There are so many twists and turns along the CDT that often you come across arrows and other markings which indicate where to go.

While we walked Aqua and I got to know eachother a bit. He’s hiking with his childhood best friend of 19 years, Crunchy. It’s Crunchy’s triple crown trail and Aqua’s first long trail. Though he did a section of the AT earlier this year as a shakedown. He was a cool dude and it was nice to walk together for a bit. Plus we’re backpack twins, so we have to stick together.

It wasn’t long before we reconnected with the redline and continued along. Then we wound up catching up to Syrup. I somehow quickly convinced him to hike the 6 more miles to the road junction where my gang was planning to spend the night. That would be a 31 mile day for him too, but he decided to do it.

Those last 6 miles dragged on like I couldn’t believe. The rest of the day had felt pretty easy and flew by. But even though the last 6 miles were relatively flat they still crushed me. I was mentally exhausted and just ready to get to camp. It always takes forever to get to camp when all you can think about is getting to camp.

The rest of the day was pretty much all downhill except for two small climbs. It was a relief to have a short break from all of the climbing lately. Even though I didn’t take many breaks over the course of the day I still felt pretty good. And with so few miles left now I definitely didn’t want to stop for a break. When I was about half a mile from camp I had to stop off for water. The water right on trail wasn’t flowing so I had to walk around a bit. But eventually I found a spot to fill up. I loaded up on water and then continued on to do the final .5 miles to camp.

Walking through a burn area along the trail this morning.

Of course that last stretch of the day was a climb though! But I was just happy to be nearly done. It felt good to catch up to High Profile at the camp site. When I arrived it was around 7:40pm, which is a bit late. I was glad to arrive before 8pm so I had plenty of time to cook and relax. The others were pretty far behind so I wasn’t sure when they would arrive.

Once my tent was set up I sat over by High Profile to make some dinner. Then Syrup caught up to us and joined us at camp too. I wound up eating and hanging out for a bit by the time that 9 Lives and Sidequest arrived. But they spent alot do time swimming today so it wasn’t too surprising. I was just glad that everybody made it to camp!

From here we are only 10 miles from the trailhead where we can hitch into Darby. So tomorrow will be a nice easy day, then we’ll be in town!

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