September 16, 2003

Day 28 - LoLo Trail

Lolo Trail to Continental Divide near Helena, MT

Normally I write journals in the evening when the day is still fresh but this entry was made the day after as it was so bitterly cold last night 35 degrees at 6pm my hands were simply too cold to write and all I wanted to do was crawl into a warm sleeping bag.

Started the day with 10 miles along the LoLo trail which is an unimproved single tract dirt road that runs along the mountain top following the original ancient Indian trail that Lewis and Clark followed. It is so completely wild in its natural state that one normally needs a back-country permit to even go but I only did a 10-mile section so didn't get one and chanced it. The weather was wild, windy, rain and snow, foggy, very dramatic and the scenery to match, often there is just enough width for the trail with steep drop offs on either side along the spine of the ridge. It is no wonder Lewis and Clark called these the most horrible mountains they had ever seen they are like the Appalachians with steep valleys but even bigger. The trail runs along the mountain tops because the rivers at the bottom have no banks wide enough to walk and the trees and brush are too thick to walk through. Lewis and Clark almost starved to death along this 70 mile stretch and it is easy to see why.

Stopped at the Indian Post office which is an old Indian cairn used for communications, then hiked down a steep ridge along a trail to what was a Lewis and Clark campsite. There is a barely visible trail which I lost along the way. If there was a place in America where one can go that nothing has changed since 1803 this would be it, I felt completely immersed back in time nothing had changed. The LoLo trail is one of the highlights of the trip.

Continued on to Montana through the town of Missoula which is one of the fastest growing towns in the USA and it is easy to see why. It is a college town and lays geographically centered in the heart of the west with everything from Yellowstone to Idaho to the Rockies all within striking distance. It reminds me somewhat of Boulder with the Starbucks crowd but also has a rougher edge to it these are mostly native western people it looks like more conservative. The white college kids with blond hair sporting huge dreadlocks were commonplace and that was pretty funny for some reason, perhaps the complete lack of minorities so they create their own by sporting Rasta dreadlocks.

East on route 12 to Helena National Forest just past the town of Eliston just before Helena found a campsite near the continental divide at 5500 feet. 28 degrees in the morning it is the coldest night of the trip and 1/4 inch of fresh snow lays on the truck. Incredible to think just a few weeks ago how hot it was driving across country and now there is snow, in fact it is some of the first snow of the season it makes national news. The campsite area is in a major grizzly travel corridor between Yellowstone and the Canadian Rockies but did not know it at the time thankfully.

Posted by stbalbach at September 16, 2003 01:30 AM
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