Glacier.

While in Waterton, I complete the process to legally walk across the border into the US and also get my Glacier backcountry camping permit.

  For hikers starting in Canada, the process is kind of funny-you make an advance permit with Glacier National Park, and then you go to the Waterton visitor center and the Glacier rangers call their corded phone and they talk to you about your permit.  There’s no way to get a walk up permit this way, but I imagine they would change your advance permit to any available campsites if you asked.  I did this the day before I was planning to walk out of town and the Waterton rangers printed the permit out for me.  To cross the border, there is an app that you download on your phone and enter your passport; then the border patrol clears you remotely to enter the US.  There’s no border patrol officers at Goat Haunt anymore, unlike when Veggie and I came through in 2015.

I walk out of town around 9 am after doing some last minute phone things.  The trail follows Waterton lake for 3 miles to the US border and the monument.

  Right at the monument there is a thruhiker, “Mr Tidy”, from Austria-he has just finished half the CDT in 50 days and will now flip back to Steamboat Springs to hike the southern half.  That seems like a pretty optimal way to hike the trail, I tell him. “How about you?  So this is the end of the GDT for you?  So you hiked the whole thing now?”

“No,” I explain somewhat morosely.  “I still have that 60 miles up north to Kakwa that will have to wait for another year.”

I wish him well and continue on through the woods.  This trail has not been maintained well, at all; huge thimbleberry and other kinds of bushes choke the trail.  I cope with this ok while the trail flatly follows the Waterton River, and then really start to resent whoever makes trail clearing priority decisions for Glacier National park as it curves up, up, up towards 50 Mountain camp and the Highline Trail.

I am hiking painfully slowly, sweating, fighting the bushes and spiderwebs.  The sun sinks low in the sky and I realize that I won’t make it to the camp before dark.  And yet, because I hate night hiking so much, I generally miss what I get to experience next-I break out above treeline, and the mountains turn pink and orange, their glaciers softly glistening in the last of the sun- and on the other side, the moon rises large off the horizon, lemon yellow in the dusk sky. 

I am delighted by this magic-and in this moment I feel fully alive, warm and sweaty and dirty-and a wild animal myself, alone in these mountains.

I finally get to 50 Mountain camp in total darkness and see headlamps twinkling around the food prep area.  I follow a use trail to a campsite- there’s a tent already, as well as the next and the next- but then I am relieved that the farthest site is empty.  I quickly set up my tent and sleeping pad and bag and head down to the food prep area to make dinner.  There are three young men there eating, from New York City-it’s a funny dynamic, because one of them is clearly the “experienced leader” and one has never been backpacking before.  Their food bags are absolutely monstrous.  Listening to their banter, and the already easily apparent annoyance of the “leader” on day 1 of an 8 day trip, cracks me up.  I’m sure they’ll figure it all out.

I finally lay down to sleep at 10:30 pm-such an insanely late bedtime on the trail.  I hiked 18 miles today.

I wake up around 6:45 today and head down to the cooking area and take my food bags down from the hang.  There are 2 retired men from Seattle having breakfast; I have a good time chatting with them for a few minutes.  I pack up and head out at 8:15.

I climb immediately up to a pass above Fifty Mountain camp and start the high line trail.  There is actually a suprising amount of water on the trail, although many more streams are dry than would have been earlier in the season.  I stop and pump a liter at a little trickle and keep hiking.

I don’t feel super great today, probably because of the extra exertion in the evening yesterday.  Also, it is really hot and sunny.  I sit down under a tree at 11 and drink water and eat a few handfuls of cheezits.  I listen to a few podcasts to distract myself from the climb up onto the trail.

Around 1, i cross a creek and meet a CDT couple who are going north.  They are from Montreal but live in France; I have a really nice conversation with them.  They are planning to finish the CDT tomorrow and continue hiking on the GDT for as long as the weather allows.  I can’t imagine wanting to hike another six weeks after hiking the entire CDT, but then I remember that ED “lapped” New Mexico when we hiked in 2015- starting northbound, flipping, meeting me and Veggie, hiking the rest of the trail south, and then hiking all of New Mexico again southbound.  So, I guess I can see the rationale.

I continue hiking through the afternoon, passing Ahern pass and now-tiny Ahern drift- take a picture of it to send Veggie later. 

• 

When we hiked through glacier in 2015, we started SOBO on June 15; we were numbers 2 and 3 to hike the Highline Trail that year.  Crosby was number 1.  The rangers hadn’t been through yet.  When we got to this area, Ahern Drift was this huge, rock-hard drift of snow across the trail that you kind of needed to cut steps in to cross, even with an ice axe.  Crosby had made steps, but he was a day ahead of us and made Crosby-sized steps; he’s 6 foot 5.  Veggie is probably 5 foot 3 and I’m 5 foot 6.  So it was an adventure crossing that 50 or 60 feet of ice-snow for us.  Anyhow; Ahern drift is a non concern now for the hikers.

I get to Granite Park Chalet and climb up to Swiftcurrent Pass; then I start picking my way down the other side.  Like all of today the views are mind blowing.

I get to the base and then walk quickly around Bullhead Lake. I notice the weather is turning; huge dark clouds arrive behind the mountains.  It’s getting darker and darker and I finally make it to Many Glacier campground.  A few drops of rain fall and I’m looking at the map on my phone and my hiking permit; a man walking by says, “are you looking for the backcountry sites?  Here, I’ll show you; there’s a pad open at ours.”  I thank him profusely for saving me a few precious minutes and tip everything out of my bag in a pile and set my tent up.  I’m putting in the last stake when it starts to rain more heavily; both young women from the tent next to me ask me, “can we help you do anything before the storm comes?”  This is an exceptionally friendly campsite.  I thank them and dive in to make dinner as it rains.  I can hear them giggling about friends and boys they know and I think, “they’re college girls.”  It reminds me of being that age in a sweet way.  The rain stops after awhile and I wearily settle in.  I hiked 18 miles today.

I get moving at 8:45 this morning after stopping at the Many Glacier camp store for a little bit of food.  I’m a little light on snacks and lunch foods; Waterton was kind of a horrible place to resupply because the options were only the outfitter (which sold “keto” backpacking meals, the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen) and the tiny general store which was akin to a gas station resupply.  I buy a few meat sticks, some candy bars, and some crystal light packets.

The trail winds out of Many Glacier and then slowly starts climbing up towards Piegan Pass.  I feel absolutely the pits today- out of breath, no exercise tolerance, bored, irritable.  I think morosely that I am just not in good enough shape right now for multiple high elevation days in a row to feel good.

A lightning storm passes over the mountains around me and I sit down in the trail in my rain gear to wait it out, rather than climbing higher.

  It passes in about 20 minutes and I continue on.  I finally wrestle my way over the pass in the afternoon and wind down the other side.  The views are spectacular, but I feel kind of spent. 

I make it down to the road and walk another mile to Reynolds Creek camp.

There are eight young women in the cooking area, interacting with one older woman who is finishing the CDT northbound.  The group of eight are friends from college.  When I arrive, I get the sense that the CDT thruhiker is kind of “performing” for the group; it irritates me a little bit. Bragging about your hike just isn’t very typical behavior at this point in a thruhike- most people become kind of introverted, and keep to themselves. The exhaustion is generally extreme by now. But, I sit down and make dinner, and am totally delighted when one of the young women starts talking about a current year PCT hiker who is funding her hike with an “OnlyFans” account.

“Apparently she’s not making very much money off the OnlyFans, though,” she says.

“That’s because nobody wants to see that,” I laugh. Call me crazy, but thruhiking life doesn’t feel very “sexy” in the conventional sense.

I mentally make peace with the thruhiker.  In many ways this hiker is much more the way most hikers used to be-a little bit funny or odd; has a hard time with “normal society”- different than now, with REI and the FarOut app making it much easier to thruhike. Today’s typical thruhiker is a tech bro on a sabbatical from his remote job, not some weirdo with undiagnosed neurodivergence who hasn’t showered in a week.

I set up my tent in a little open area in the trees, since all the tent pads are taken by this big group.  I hiked 15 miles today.

I get moving, I think, before the big group of girls in the morning, around 8:30.  The trail makes really minimal elevation change today-maybe only a couple hundred feet.  It’s sunny and warm and I follow the trail as it follows the south shore of St Mary Lake for almost nine miles.  I think this area has burned since I thruhiked the CDT; I remember it being a lot greener here.

A few hikers pass the other direction, including one Australian CDT hiker finishing northbound.  I pass Red Eagle Foot campground and am surprised to see the girls already camped there; they must have passed me somehow or started before me with me realizing it.  I continue on another 0.8 miles to Red Eagle Head, the other end of Red Eagle Lake.  There are two retirement-age couples already set up. “You can camp over there, you’ll like that campsite,” one of the women tells me.  “Ok,” I say obediently.  I chat with them all later; they are from Great Falls Montana.  I hang my food up on the food pole and turn in early.  I hiked 14 easy miles today.

I get moving around 8:45, only around 10 miles today.  The Great Falls group starts almost at the same time as me-but I pass them within a few minutes.  The trail continues to follow the Red Eagle creek through old burn zone, not very exciting- then it starts to climb up towards Triple Divide Pass, and the views open up.

The weather degrades as I climb.  As I’m approaching the pass, the clouds open and cold, windy rain pummels me.  I soldier on to the pass, quickly change my shirt out of my cold sweaty tank top, and put on my hat and rain gear.  I’m pretty disappointed that I can’t stop here right now and enjoy the view-this pass had the friendliest, funniest marmots of the entire CDT in 2015.

I start down the other side.  The clouds open blows over and the weather is tentatively ok for a while.  About halfway down I meet a backcountry ranger, who tells me there have been 3 separate animal carcasses that have closed trails in the park (because of grizzly bear risk) this week.  “I guess it’s carcass week,” he tells me.

I get down to Atlantic Creek camp at about 3:30.  I’m trying to wait until the other group arrives to set up my tent so that they can choose where they’d like to set up, but the clouds return and it starts to rain, cold, again-I go ahead and set up my tent and sleeping bag. The group arrives as I’m cooking dinner in the food area.

For the second time on this trip, I feel lonely.  Twenty-five days into this trip seems like a pretty good run, and this wasn’t supposed to be a solo trip-but no one else is hiking the direction or itinerary that I’m doing, so it has only been transient connections.  And the places I am hiking through now, I walked through with Veggie on the CDT-in June 2015, the first week of our longterm friendship that extends to today.  I once again feel so thankful for the bright moments on this trip-like meeting Lee and Rita, my rescuers up north; and Mike and all of the folks at Camp Moose Trail that made those few days so special.  I miss Bishop though; and my friends and my little life in that funny town-I’ll be glad to go home soon.  I hiked 10.5 miles today.

It’s raining when I wake up.  I wait until 9 am but it doesn’t show any signs of stopping-so, I pack everything inside my backpack, put on my rain gear, and break down the wet tent, stuffing it into the outside pocket of my backpack.

It’s a cold rain with a cold wind behind it, makes me think of fall.  I hightail it down the trail in an attempt to warm up and soon run into the Great Falls folks walking out a little slower than me.  I pass them and continue on to the trailhead; two groups pass me the other direction on their way in to backpack.  Kind of depressing conditions to start your trip; but I imagine it can only get better from here.

I get to the trailhead and start the dirt road walk to the highway.  I put a thumb out but don’t try too hard to hitch; no one pulls over.  The rain stops for a little bit and a patch of blue sky appears; I think “I really need to get to the highway before it starts raining again or I’ll never get picked up.”  No one wants to pick up a soggy, dripping hitchhiker to get their car all messy.  But, this is hypothermia rain-cold and windy; and I’m concerned about being able to maintain my core temperature if I stop hiking.  I put my thumb out on the highway and within 5 minutes, a converted short bus pulls over-it’s this adorable couple in their 20s who have been van life-ing for the past year; the girl is 19 weeks pregnant and they are wrapping up their year long trip.  I have a great time chatting with them all the way into East Glacier.

They drop me off outside Brownie’s hostel; I exit the bus in a bit of a daze, trying to orient myself to being off the trail and in a town.  “Hey there!  You hungry?  We’ve got island food here,” a man calls to me from a food truck in front of me.  “Oh, thanks…” I say. “Well where did you come from?” Another man walking by says.  I’m a little overwhelmed, but also realizing I look like a CDT hiker, with my dirty backpack and rain clothes.

East Glacier is split into basically two parts-the half I’m in, which contains the hostel, the laundromat, a couple of food trucks and a restaurant, and incidentally the motel I’m staying at.  I walk over to the motel to check in; a retirement-age couple is standing in front of me. The hotelier appears from the back; he banters with the couple a little bit and asks if they plan on doing any hiking in the park.  He suggests a couple of 2 mile hikes to them.

Seeing an opportunity, I ask them, “do you have bear spray yet?  Do you want mine?” “Ok…” the woman timidly takes the big pepper spray can from me in its holster.  This unleashes another 5 minutes of advice from the hotelier-about how to use bear spray, and when, and how far it sprays.  They thank us both, a little overwhelmed, and leave for their room-and the hotelier tells me, “I didn’t tell them but I’ve been charged by a mama bear.  She got six feet from me and made eye contact with me and then turned around.  I had the spray out but luckily I didn’t have to spray.” In my head I think I definitely would have felt like I “had to” spray by that point myself, but I keep that thought to myself.  I let myself into my heavenly little unupdated, retro motor lodge room and crank the heat up, take out all my wet things, and take a boiling hot shower.

Later I go back out to do my laundry-I cannot believe how cold it is now.  Getting quarters for the washing machine at Brownie’s, I see a couple that have “that look” about them-tan and slim in a way that only one type of exercise can produce, beat-up Hoka shoes, Pa’lante fanny pack.

“You guys finishing the CDT?” I ask.

“Just starting; actually.  Calendar year triple crown.  We just finished the PCT yesterday,” the girl tells me.  Their last zero day was in Bishop, two months ago.  They’ll spend the next 4 months racing to the Mexican border, hiking 30 mile days.  I immediately regret giving my Canadian bear spray to the lady in the motel.  They are Sparkle and Nancy Drew.  I feel lucky to have met them for a moment.

I turn in to my cozy motel early and sleep soundly through the night, glad to be inside again.