Building a trail through the powder on February 1, 2014. When I put the 85-pound backpack back on I had a trail at least one foot deep in the powder.
Gone are the mild temperatures and dry weather we experienced during the first third of December in Montana and Idaho, supplanted by two storms in the last week. In the extended weekly forecast, two more storms and subzero temperatures are approaching. Presently the avalanche warnings are out in force along the Montana and Idaho border west and south of Montana’s Bitterroot Valley.
With the starting date for the 460-mile Continental Divide trip being January 6, this weather is precariously close. If I have to contend with deep powder beginning on the Madison Plateau in Yellowstone National Park, I may delay the trip.
That 65 percent chance of a mild El Niño weather event beginning in January 2015, made public during the first week of December, is looking thinner with each passing day. El Niño in the area I will be traveling means warmer temperatures and less moisture. That interprets into less powder to push through while having a crust to walk on for much of the route. What is a certainty, traveling alone in deep powder that comes from a heavy snowstorm wavers between difficult, impossible, and hazardous. Besides the inability of getting more than three miles per day of forward progress in these conditions, there is the peril of avalanches.
On another seemingly unrelated subject, a few days ago, I visited Lost Trail Powder Mountain, a ski resort on Lost Trail Pass on the Montana and Idaho border, one mile west of Chief Joseph Pass and the Continental Divide. Observing the hundreds of skiers and snowboarders, the difference between how they view a steep mountainside as opposed to how I do, stood out starkly. I once heard that a rocket blasting a cargo into space was nothing more than a controlled explosion. As I watched the skiers and snowboarders, it occurred to me that they were enjoying something similar on the steep, but groomed mountainside. That is not the case with what I experience in the same winter wonderland. Short of exercising patience as nature performs its own time consuming grooming of the mountainsides, to continue forward progress I sometimes am faced with Mother Nature’s uncontrolled explosive might.
Another difference, and far more moving was what went on inside the resort’s toasty main building. Men, women, and children were visiting with each other, while drinking beer, a variety of soft drinks, sipping coffee, or even getting a drink out of a water fountain. They were ordering hamburgers, cheeseburgers, French fries, hot dogs and a variety of other delicious foods. The differences struck me hard.
It was like watching a movie about a war where the actors are never genuinely hurt or killed, while my memories of actual war are completely the opposite. Eventually I revisited the ski patrol building and said goodbye to my busy friend, a member of the patrol. He offered me a bed for the night, which I turned down without expressing a reason. I could not bear to tell him that something he loves so much was having such an adverse effect on me. With growing anxiety, I left the resort while simultaneously beginning to feel the loneliness that is in my inevitable near future, but maybe not as soon as I plan.
Located on the Montana and Idaho border, this is the western side of Henrys Lake Mountains on January 24, 2014.
West of the Madison Plateau, beyond Targhee Pass, which is 50 miles into the trip, lies 15 miles of travel in Henrys Lake Mountains, and the first real threat for avalanches. With the amount of powder that is out there right now there will be no ascending or descending an avalanche slope. I will have to either wait or go around. Easier said than done, that latter alternative might prove to be impossible in the area around Targhee Divide and Black Mountain. Meanwhile the extended forecast calls for continued deep powder on the ground through at least December 29. The likelihood of having a crust to walk on eight days later is almost nil. With the Continental Divide trip a little over two weeks away, the chance of my leaving near the end of the first week of January is increasingly doubtful.
If I do travel under those conditions, to arrive at the Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming tri-border a five-mile round-trip in virgin powder, untouched by snowmobiles or grooming machines, will await me. I might need two days to complete this task, while with a strong crust; it is only a day hike. If this area requires me to travel in powder, I will have to bring extra food and fuel—more weight. A heavier load is synonymous to a slower and more difficult trip.
Located on the Continental Divide and 10 miles beyond Henrys Lake Mountains is the carnivorous Eastern Centennial Mountains.
The upside of the area east of Targhee Pass is its lack of having any avalanche terrain. Nevertheless, during the 460-mile trip, 21 areas may require technical climbing gear. During those particular days, the measurement for my forward progress will be in feet rather than miles. If slowed in the less hazardous areas by powder snow, I may run out of food and fuel in some sections of the trip. In addition, to accommodate the inevitable storms there will be delays along the route and alterations that increase the distance of the trip.
If the reader is getting the impression that I am worried or afraid, make no mistake, you nailed it.
Addendum, December 29, 2014: the extended forecast calls for not only extreme arctic cold, but also a continuation of warmer and still subfreezing temperatures mixed with more snow. This forecast almost guarantees I will delay the main trip beyond January 6, 2015.
In the last week, the weather has changed in Western Montana. We have gone from moderate snowfall (between 6 inches and 3 feet, depending on the elevation) and subzero temperatures, to an extended forecast with a mixed bag of scattered rain and snow, including temperatures up to 40°F. Even the elevation of 10,000 feet along the Continental Divide has an extended forecast with a low of 20°F.
Could this be the beginning of the El Niño weather pattern? The NOAA is staying quiet. That could be the smart thing for them to do. I, on the other hand, am not part of the NOAA. Indeed, where the weather is concerned I am a hands-on kind of guy. For that reason, any attempt I would make to cross an avalanche slope after the recent snowstorm would be dangerous, even foolhardy. If it were to rain on the slope, that same attempt would likely be fatal. On the other hand, this weather can also settle the snowpack while creating a crust I can walk on with my snowshoes and crampons. This latter condition is exactly what I am hoping to have for the Continental Divide trip.
In addition, 50 miles into the Continental Divide trip beginning in January 2015, I will encounter my first slopes that require technical climbing gear to ascend and descend. Besides the peril of possible avalanches, proper placement of snow pickets in powder to anchor my rope would be difficult if not impossible.
Yesterday, I drove north for my first winter training trip, which I intended to undertake in the Dearborn River Canyon of the Scapegoat Wilderness. With the nonstop rain soaking into the snowpack at the trailhead, I canceled the trip. Forget the avalanches. Rainfall during the winter on my equipment and on me is dangerous. Nevertheless, go I will, just not up there. This morning I leave for Bannock Pass on the Montana and Idaho border to the south. According to the weather forecast, any moisture I receive down there will be snow.
To be clear, during the 90-day trip, which begins in approximately 30 days, with the exception of rain falling on the snowpack, it makes no difference what the weather conditions are. I will travel through most of it.
With that said, you know I sort of feel like I’m playing poker with the totally emotionless old man winter. Regardless of what I do, his stare never changes. I look into his eyes, at his protected card hand, and then glance at the wall behind him. There is no perceptible movement in his eyes or on his face. Finally, I place my cards on the table. In turn, he places his on the table. Then while his blank, yet cold eyes continue to stare a hole through me, his hand smashes mine to a pulp. Oh boy.
On February 4th, 2014, in Yellowstone National Park, the latest storm had just dumped another three feet of snow. Within hours of this photo, a -40 F temperature would arrive.
Is it time to say goodbye to the El Niño forecast and alter my travel plans accordingly? As of November 20, 2014, the three-month extended outlook along Montana’s portion of the Continental Divide predicts from 33% up to a 40% chance for above normal temperatures. In addition, the NOAA (http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/) is now predicting an equal chance for a normal winter to 33% chance below normal moisture.
This interprets into an increased chance I will encounter powder snow until near the end of February 2015. The winter of 2014 also had the label of “equal chance” for a normal winter. The snowpack was huge and the powder nearly untenable for extended snowshoe travel throughout the month of February.
It has been and continues to be, albeit with less hope, my plan to begin the trip near the end of the first week of January. This close, 44 days until beginning the 90-day trip, however means the likelihood is growing that I will not begin the trip until the first part of February 2015.
Last autumn I placed my resupplies at locations where I could take on traveling in deep powder snow. While I have a tremendous amount of food and fuel to get me to Monida Pass on Interstate 15, there may still not be enough. In deep powder snow, I average between three and four miles of forward progress per day. There is also the possibility that I will have to use technical climbing gear at six separate locations, where my daily progress measurements will be in feet rather than miles. Additionally, there will be down days due to storms and bad avalanche conditions.
I have 39 days of supplies for the first 140 miles of the route. If I only average three miles per day I will run out of supplies eight days before arriving at Monida Pass. Should that happen, I will lose three and four pounds of body weight per day. To encounter a weight loss like that after already being on the route for one month would be devastating.
Throughout the 462-mile route I have alternate routes to be used to get around avalanche areas and if needed, to shorten the route. One such route is located at Red Rock Pass. However, that would only shorten my route by two or three days. After that alteration, my options would be limited, and my supplies would still fall five days short of Monida Pass.
With that said, I have always known the trip carries risks. As much as I have prepared, it may not be enough. Only traveling the route will clear the air. Nor is there anyone in front of me who has experience with this route to advise me. My most experienced advisor too often has also been my greatest enemy—my head.
Inside the elbow on the eastern approach to Hole in the Wall, Glacier National Park.
During a recent presentation and book signing, one of the audience observed that wherever I have been the trappers and mountain men were there before me. On the surface, it seems like a reasonable statement. On further inspection though, why indeed would they have been in the higher elevations during the winter?
The mountain men of the early 19th century on the most part did not come west just to see what was out here. Before the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery Expedition left St. Louis in 1804, the British and French were already divulging information about the bountiful fur harvest ready for the taking. In 1806, the Expedition was coming down the Missouri River after having been gone for over two years when they encountered two trappers headed upstream in what is now North Dakota.
A short time later, a member of the Corps of Discovery John Colter, given an early honorable discharge, headed back upstream and briefly joined these men. In 1807, he went to work for an American fur trading company as an explorer, or scout. After visiting one area, he came back with a report of seeing bubbling mud pots, boiling pools of water, and steaming geysers. Met with derision, his discovery was dubbed “Colter’s Hell”. Some 65 years later the area would become the world’s first national park and named Yellowstone National Park.
Most mountain men were “company men”, that is, they worked for a fur trading company. Their job was to trap not explore. From 1810 to the late 1830s, approximately 3000 men trapped furs in an area 200 miles south of the present day Montana and Canadian border down to present-day New Mexico. The explorers for these fur-trapping companies, for the most part, did their scouting during the summer.
In short, most mountain men were motivated not to summit peaks or bust through an impenetrable area during the winter, just to say they did it, but to make money off the fur trade. If an explorer did summit a peak, it was generally to survey the surrounding area.
My winter routes typically take me into the high alpine regions where I stay as much as possible. There are few animals and birds up there. Deer, elk, and the American bison, more popularly known as the buffalo, are in the lower elevation winter ranges where they can forage through the winter. For similar reasons, beaver and muskrat need streams and forests, none of which exists in the alpine regions. The carnivores follow their food supply into the lower elevations. For that same reason, the mountain men stayed in the lower elevations, following their fur supply.
There are also noteworthy differences in the equipment they used compared to the gear in my inventory that made travel into the high country more difficult, if not outright impossible. With their equipment, they could do things that I could never do with my gear. There is no way I could build a cabin, kill an animal for meat and/or for its hide. On the other hand, the mountain men’s equipment was useless in aiding them to climb or traverse 60° to 80° snow and ice slopes. None of them carried crampons, since the first crampon design was in 1908. While the ice ax existed, it was still in Europe.
What the mountain men sought required them to use numerous horses and mules to carry their supplies and equipment. Like a human being, stock are unable to move in deep powder and snowpack, much less forage for their food. Just to preserve their essential stock required the mountain men to stay where their animals could forage through the winter.
Like the mountain men, most of my travel is with snowshoes. That’s where the similarities pretty much come to a halt though. Their high maintenance and heavier flotation devices were made of wood and leather thong manufacture, while mine are aluminum and polypropylene construction. Additionally, my snowshoes have steel alloy teeth to grip in a snow crust, making them far superior in the steep ascents and descents of the Rocky Mountains. Even with the teeth of the snowshoes I possess however, the flotation devices cease functioning in the steeper angled peaks of the Rockies. That is where the mountaineering gear is essential. Without the technical gear I possess, that did not exist during the days of the mountain men, any attempt to access an area like Hole in the Wall in Glacier National Park would have been a suicidal failure.
For the 462-mile winter trek in 2015, I have 599 pounds of food and fuel. Of that, 135 pounds is fuel while the remainder is dehydrated food and olive oil. I have 34 resupplies along a one-way route and carry a 4-pound tent. In a similar manner, the mountain men had trap lines and log shelters containing supplies scattered up and down those lines. Their food was similar in some respects such as pemmican, dried meat, and flour. Unlike me though, they ate huge quantities of fresh meat, while most of my food is vegetarian. Without that fresh meat, in September 1805 the Corps of Discovery almost starved to death getting across the spine of the Bitterroot Range and ended up dining on horsemeat.
Something else that has happened are the monumental changes that have taken place with the equipment in the last 200 years. While my crampons and the teeth on the snowshoes are steel, everything else is lightweight aluminum. With the exception of the wool socks and some goose down, everything I wear is synthetic material. In short, the load I carry today is probably more than 50% lighter than 100 years ago. That means I can carry more supplies for longer winter trips, and into areas that would have been untouchable a century earlier, much less 200 years ago.
My winter bedroom weighs 10.25 pounds, which includes the accessory chair and a three-quarter length self-inflating pad to go with the chair. My bedroom might weigh one third of what it would have weighed 100 or more years ago. At the same time, my sleeping gear will keep me warm in a tent when the temperature is 50 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.
The Scott expedition 100 years ago in Antarctica had eider down sleeping bags available. Eider, the warmest down on the face of the planet, like goose down, begins to fail at the first hint of body moisture. The Scott expedition was unable to preserve the fill power from the body’s moisture. Therefore, when Scott made his successful attempt to arrive at the South Pole, he was compelled to use the much heavier fur and wool blankets for sleeping gear. While their blankets and furs held up far better than a down sleeping bag, eventually their sleeping system failed due to the moisture buildup from their bodies. During their return, the men, along with Scott, froze to death before getting back to safety. They died in their sleeping gear. The short of this is that the weight of the gear of 100 years ago slowed the Scott expedition down and made the trip far more dangerous, and as it turned out impossible. Today, we have the means to protect the extremely lightweight down. If that were not the case, then I would likely freeze to death sometime after the 7th day of the 90-day trip.
The conclusion of this is that there is nothing exceptional about us today. For that matter, physically the mountain men were undeniably far superior to us. However, with the equipment we possess today, it is possible for us to access locations where the mountain men were incapable of getting to, or even had any interest in “being the first”.
After a November snowstorm in Helena Montana, from the Prairie Trail a wintry scene of the cliffs of Mount Helena City Park.
November 1, 2014 marked the beginning of my third and final phase of training for the Continental Divide winter trip. This was also the start of the winter training. In a growing snowpack, I will undertake at least three multi-night backcountry trips. Here in Helena Montana, I have increased my daily training regimen. I am now exercising at least twice a day in the basement for approximately one half hour per segment (the physical therapist says where my back is concerned, it is critical to do the exercises three times a day). The daily minimum exercise on Mount Helena includes carrying a 53-pound load 3.5 miles with an ascent/descent of 800 feet.
Although the announced plan is to begin the Continental Divide winter trip on February 1, 2015, I have to be ready to go by January 1. If there is enough snowpack coupled with a crust on the surface after the New Year begins, that is when the trip will begin. In short, 46 days might be all that remains before the trip begins.
On Monday, November 17, I will begin my first winter training trip 75 miles north of Helena with three nights in the Scapegoat Wilderness’s Dearborn River Canyon. Although there will be snow on the ground, I am unsure whether snowshoes will be necessary. Make no mistake; I will have the flotation gear with me. Skimping during past winter trips has afforded me plenty of opportunity for some costly lessons, one nearly fatal. Weather wise, as of the morning of November 13 the extended forecast calls for moderating temperatures with a low of approximately 14°F on Monday and a high of 32°F by Tuesday, excellent traveling temperatures. The load weight will be approximately 75 pounds, not counting the nearly 6-pound snowshoes. Unfortunately, less than one week ago I began training with a 53-pound load. That Dearborn trip load is probably going to feel like a wheelbarrow load of batteries. Uggh.
This trip will also mark the first time I have been in the beautiful Dearborn Canyon since January 2002. If the next two winters go according to plan, I will travel through this canyon again in 2016, during the second leg of the Continental Divide winter trips.
I will be using the satellite connected personal messenger device. All Facebook and Twitter users will be able to follow my daily progress. That is, you will be able to locate my camp at the end of each day on a provided map.
After the Dearborn trip, I will attempt to do two more training trips, likely in December before beginning the main trip. Although unsure of these other trip locations, I suspect one will be to Lionhead Mountain in Henrys Lake Mountains near West Yellowstone, Montana.
Finally, yesterday the physical therapist made clear that where my back is concerned, the pain free days of travel with a load are behind me. All the training I am doing, particularly the strength and endurance training concerning the small of my back will only lessen the pain, not eliminate it. That interprets into a slower pace. Simultaneously it shortens each day’s travel time. The challenge continues to grow.
With that said, the morning exercises are front and center. Although I am unsure what the results will be, I will continue to prepare for the Continental Divide trip. In other words, where the trip and its preparations are concerned, all is normal.
Two days after a snowstorm, the snowshoes were dropping through the powder snow 1.5 feet. Another storm would arrive later this day and drop another three feet of snow. The location was the western edge of Yellowstone National Park, on Madison Plateau and near the Continental Divide.
In another indication of the rapidly closing date for beginning the 93-day winter expedition, Montana and Idaho’s mountain snowpack has begun to accumulate. Being early winter however, it comes as no surprise that the NOAA SNOTEL site near Darkhorse Lake (8700 feet), located in the southern Bitterroot Range, shows that in the last five days the snowpack has dropped from nine to six inches. More is on the way though. Beginning tomorrow evening, November 1, another 12 inches could fall. Moreover, with our going into November, the average daily temperature is continuing to drop. Most of that snow is going to remain on the ground until next June.
Of far greater interest to me than the increasing snowpack is the weather phenomenon known as El Niño. I am hoping it plays a strong role in next winter’s snowshoe trip. As of this date though, there is some uncertainty of how strong it will be, or for that matter, when the event will begin. The latest extended forecast, released on October 16, 2014 called for a 67% chance of a mild El Niño beginning by mid-November. From Yellowstone National Park to Butte Montana, the area I will be traveling through next winter, the impact of this weather pattern normally means less snowpack and more importantly, warmer temperatures. Those higher than average temperatures could create a crust I can walk on sooner than the latter days of February.
The reason I don’t begin extended winter trips until at least the beginning of February, is due to the condition of the snow. Although I relish the idea of having enough snowpack to cover brush, timber fall, and rock fields, the real reason I wait until later concerns whether a crust has formed on the snowpack. Traveling in deep powder is a nightmare. It can cut my daily average of 6 and 8 miles down to 3 and 4 miles.
The La Niña winter of 2008 brought the opposite effect of El Niño. With the storms lining up behind each other, I traveled through three feet of powder during the latter days of March. That occurred during the double crossing of the Bitterroot Range west of Montana’s Bitterroot Valley. The average day was eight hours of travel with my forward progress between three and four miles. Because I was compelled to build trail without the backpack, I actually traveled between 9 and 12 miles each day. I needed nine days to travel the first 25 miles, which included going over Blodgett Pass. By the last day, even my three-day emergency food supply was at the crumbs level. Fortunately, the resupply bucket was where it was supposed to be.
A crust would have changed the character of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness trip (although I wonder what I would have written about if the trip had gone smoothly). As it were, the snowshoe portion of the trip was only 115 miles, but still took one month to complete.
Using primarily snowshoes, the distance I will travel on the Continental Divide during the winter of 2015 will be 462 miles. I have to be able to average approximately 5 miles per day for 93 days. That is not possible in deep powder. Granted, I will have 107 days of supplies out there, but I will have to make up the days of downtime from the inevitable storms. More than that, for as much as 12 days I will be traveling on rope and crampons, where the measurement of forward progress is in feet rather than miles.
Another troubling consideration is the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness, which I will enter 375 miles into the trip. During the winter of 2007, I undertook five trips in this wilderness, where the final trip included crossing it and the Continental Divide. As the result of that experience, I consider it vital to get through the wilderness near the end of the winter rather than begin the following winter’s trip with the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness still in front of me.
So yes, I am watching with a keen interest in what the future holds with the El Niño weather pattern.
I started out needing to place 27 resupplies in the backcountry for the winter Continental Divide trip. Finally, with only three remaining, I hesitantly hoped that the worst was behind me so I could begin focusing on the winter training. In the last month and a week, not all had gone well with the first 24 caches.
Admittedly, the most recent placement 48 hours earlier went better than I perceived it would. In the early days of August, my wife and I had reconnoitered the Darkhorse Lake area 20 miles south of today’s hike. As a result, my head prophesied a tough day hike on my return into that area. As it happened though, I made the 7.3-mile trip in just under six hours. While the Darkhorse Lake day hike gave me hope, too many other trips had scratched out my psychic eyes, such as the Mile Creek Canyon hike in Henrys Lake Mountains 14 days earlier. My feet were still sporting marks from the blisters I got from that trip.
So yes, I had a little hope that the day hike in Montana and Idaho’s rugged southern Bitterroot Range to the cirque in Big Lake Creek Canyon would go better. And no, I didn’t trust October 9, 2014 at all.
At 11:20 AM, I left the trailhead at the foot of Twin Lakes. As I walked away from the van, I was less concerned about the late time then my throbbing left thumb. I had ripped the nail partially off 10 minutes earlier during my final prep at the vehicle.
Although it felt heavier, at 45 pounds the load was light when compared to the training load that was coming beginning in the early days of November. Already the chronic pain in the small of my back was announcing its presence. Lately I had been experiencing pain free days with a load this size. Years of experience however said that if the pain stayed with me for more than five minutes, it was only going to get worse as the day wore on, creating one long day.
Almost three hours later, the day lost any humor it may have had, except I had yet to make that discovery. I had long since lost count of the number of trees that had fallen across the unmaintained trail, along with the bogs, springs, and streams. I had slogged through, gone around, crawled under, or climbed over these trail treasures almost continuously for the first 3.5 miles. In addition, according to my readings, I had one more mile to travel and another 500 feet to ascend. Although not overwhelmed by it, the pain in my back had slowed me down to an average of 1.3 mph.
Straight ahead through the thick forest sawed logs were on either side of the obvious trail. To my immediate right was another bog. On the other side of it, I could see more bushes, trees, and the slight openings found in higher elevation forests away from north face areas. I found it curious that the trail was closing in on the north face of the canyon. The planned route, based off a previous trip in 2006, was to the right side of Big Lake Creek. Several minutes later, and now on the bottom of the north face, the trail suddenly ceased to exist.
I have a serious character flaw that I still practice too often, an aversion to going over ground I have already walked. With the cessation of the trail came the emergence of this defect, a major mistake that changed the character of the hike. I was beginning to feel tired, and with the loss of the trail, the irritation emerged. I was damned if I would go back down that trail. I knew where I was at, and at this elevation, 7850 feet; the forest couldn’t possibly become much thicker, could it?
In another 35 minutes, I had only traveled a quarter mile inside the north face forest and ascended 300 feet. My ire had grown proportionally to the increasing exhaustion. I also realized I had made a bad mistake, but it was too late to go back now. Time had become an issue. Assuming the same pace, if I turned around now and headed for the vehicle, I would arrive at dusk. However, inside my backpack was a 15-pound resupply for next winter. Besides, the Continental Divide Trail couldn’t be that far away.
Inside the heavy forest, I had emerged into an open area, which revealed the 50° angled slope up to the flat. It was a 75-foot wide avalanche chute, with a running stream on its eastern edge. By all that I could see, I only needed to switchback a quarter-mile to the flat and the Continental Divide Trail. Meanwhile the original goal on the other side of the Big Lake Creek cirque was still .63 miles distance as the crow flies. To get over there I would have to meander around trees, bushes, bogs, fallen trees, and ankle twisting bear grass clumps. I began climbing.
As I ascended, I stopped numerous times, once for 15 minutes. I had been sitting on the slope for 10 minutes when I glanced down at the heart rate monitor. It read 204. Unsure whether it was an accurate reading, I noted that although I was tired, I felt fine. Nevertheless, it occurred to me that I had no experience on what a heart attack would feel like. That’s when I sent a message through my satellite connected personal messenger device. I said I would wait another five minutes, which I did. As I neared the end of that time, I glanced down at the heart rate monitor. It now read 170 bpm. I looked again less than a minute later. The reading was 113. The high heart rate reading had apparently been a false alarm, probably the result of a faulty connection or low battery inside my chest monitor strap.
I arrived on the flat 15 minutes later. In a sudden rush of relief, I let out a short-lived victorious roar. I had needed 45 minutes to ascend 300 feet and was now approaching exhaustion. Meanwhile there was still a cache to place, nor would I be going out the way I came in. With the cache placed almost one hour later and a half mile traveled along the arch of the cirque, I finally began the descent, leaving the 8700-foot elevation and Continental Divide Trail behind.
I dropped into the area of the forest where I was supposed to have come up in the first place. In spite of the loss of 15 pounds out of my backpack, the pain in my back was now continuous and increasing. I began to stop every one to three minutes and use an exercise to stretch the lower back muscles, except the stretches had become almost ineffective.
The sun had dropped behind the ridgeline 300 feet above me where the actual Continental Divide was located. I now realized that it would be hours after darkness settled before I got back to the vehicle. It was a blessing that I did not know how long it would actually take.
I found the old abandon miner’s cabin half an hour later located at the head of Big Lake Creek. Glancing through the opening that used to be the door, I spotted the rusted out and broken kitchen stove. My mind’s eye imagined a picture of the structure when there was a roof, door, a bed to sleep on, and a hot fire in the stove. Then came my first thought about abandoning the exit and spending the night in the backcountry. I gave the cabin a final glance and continued the descent on the freshly found trail.
In another 45 minutes, I reconnected with the trail intersection where I had made the mistake. It only took a few moments to see that the bog had erased the real trail. Yet I could not help but wonder how I missed it this time when eight years earlier I had brought my wife, dog and I through this area without incident.
When I arrived at the bog, I had traveled almost seven miles in seven hours. Now footsore and tired, I was keenly aware there was still approximately 3.5 miles to travel on a badly dilapidated trail. If my present pace continued, which was similar to ascending the canyon, then I was still three hours away from the vehicle. I figured I had approximately 45 minutes of daylight remaining.
Just before 7 PM, I brought out my head lantern, but didn’t turn it on for another 10 minutes. As time passed, I increasingly examined the thought of building a bed under one of the large Douglas fir pine trees and then make my exit the following morning. I nevertheless kept traveling. At my final stop, I sent a message through the messenger that I was still probably one hour away from the trailhead. I noted that I had been walking for an hour and a half in the dark.
Using the homing function on my GPS watch, I quit the trail 50 minutes later and attempted a shortcut to the trailhead. I crossed the final stream and bog, this time fighting to get through a hedge of willows at the same time, and arrived at the vehicle nine minutes later.
Without a doubt, to date the Big Lake Creek Canyon has been the most difficult day hike in the last month and a half along the Continental Divide. Hours before getting to the vehicle, I fixed the blame squarely on myself. Oh yes, I bill myself as quite the backcountry traveler. One of the resultant returns with that kind of thinking is the difficulty I have admitting the truth about my humanity.
All too often, I apparently need to experience a whole lot of mistakes, most of them repeats of lessons learned from previous trips. I think though that as much as I hold making mistakes with great disfavor, they may keep me from getting too big. Therefore, when the real trip begins, in this case continuing the winter Continental Divide trip, I hope my ego is in check. That will increase my ability to survive the perils of winter travel and perhaps minimize my mistakes.
In that light, mistake riddled day hikes are damned good training. On the other hand, there is the potential for another three months of damned good training events. Just thinking about it 24 hours later makes me feel tired. Maybe after the main trip begins though, I will finally get a breather. Oh brother, here’s another illusion probably setting me up for one more good whacking.
An autumn morning at the entrance to Mile Creek Canyon in Henrys Lake Mountains. This location is near Yellowstone National Park. The ridge line in the photo is the Continental Divide, which is also the Montana and Idaho border.
Yesterday on the Montana and Idaho border near Yellowstone National Park, Gus (our black dog) and I hiked up Mile Creek Canyon inside Henrys Lake Mountains. At the lower elevations of 7000 feet the autumn colors were past prime, but still gorgeous. If I had not been carrying a load, I am certain the 12-mile round-trip hike to the Continental Divide would have been much more enjoyable. Gus however might not agree with my assessment. Almost 24 hours later, he is still lying in the TV room recovering. He wasn’t carrying anything, but his aging body.
For my part, while it could have been worse, I too failed to come out of the canyon unscathed. My left back thigh hurts the same as does the small of my back. There is a monster blister with the skin already ripped off on the absolute front of the middle toe on my left foot. There is also a quarter coin sized large blood filled blister on the left side of my big toe on the right foot. The foot problems are compliments of a pair of mountaineering boots I had not worn for at least one year. I wore the damn things because my other non-winter pair developed a hole in the leather just above the rubber sole. Yes, and it would appear that I sometimes need to go back and relearn a previous harsh lesson.
On the upside, the photo opportunities were close to excellent. The hike also placed me one more notch closer to being ready for the 460-mile winter trip. Out of the 27 autumn trips to be undertaken, only 5 remain.
In the meantime, a replacement pair of mountaineering boots will arrive the first part of next week. There is also a good possibility; they will be leaving their first hike tracks in freshly fallen snow. I will be traveling to the southern Bitterroot Range near the Big Hole Valley of Montana on October 1 or 2. Once again, I will be on the Continental Divide, this time near the Darkhorse Lake area.
No, Gus will be staying home with the other old dog, Reverend. Like most of the previous trips in the last month, this aging dog will be going solo. I will miss my companions and don’t relish being alone.
Three peaks on the Continental Divide in Idaho and Montana’s Henrys Lake Mountains. From left to right, Black Mountain (10,237 ft), Targhee Peak (10,400 ft), Bald Mountain (10,180 ft). One camp will be on Black Mountain in February, 2015.
After the haphazard trips along Montana and Idaho’s portion of the Continental Divide during the winter of 2014, I was uncertain of being able to continue them in the upcoming winters, or for that matter, any backcountry trips, regardless of the season. There was the illness in the beginning of February that some in the medical field thought was high-altitude sickness, which was a mimic of carbon monoxide poisoning, a potentially deadly condition that occurred in my tent. Throughout the recently passed summer, I was at high altitude numerous times with no negative effect. Then with the continuation of the trips in March, there was the increasing pain in the left knee, which brought me to a halt by the end of the third day. There was also the old nonstop pain that at the time, and for the last several years, I erroneously thought was the sciatic nerve in the small of my back. Finally, there was my increasing doubts of being able to do any kind of winter trip at my age, 62 years at the time.
Within days of my return from the final trip near the end of March, I began to prepare for the following winter. I exercised and climbed diligently, but seemingly for naught. By June 1, I was convinced all my efforts were having no effect on my back. At my wife’s persistent suggestion, I finally sought medical help.
The doctor ran me through several physical tests. It only took a few minutes for him to conclude that I do not have a sciatic nerve problem. Instead, the MRI and x-ray he ordered confirmed that I have arthritis in my lower back, a deteriorating condition, only slowed, never stopped, or reversed. While I refused his recommended cortisone steroid injections and painkilling drugs, I went with the doctor’s additional recommendation of physical therapy.
Since the middle of June, I have been seeing two different types of physical therapists. The first is involved in a holistic method known as structural integration or Rolfing. The second therapist is instructing me in stretching and strengthening exercises such as the “plank”, designed to cause much pain in my elbows, shoulders, and deep down inside the small of my back, three times a day.
In addition, a yoga therapist gave me exercises that addressed those same muscles in the small of my back that extend into my hips. It was her recommendation on the proper positioning of the spine that eventually made it possible for me to walk with a load, even on a rough and rock-strewn trail. This last development took place a mere month ago during the first week of August in the southern Bitterroot Range, near Montana’s Big Hole Valley. At the time, my morale was probably at its lowest. I was all but certain that my days of carrying a load were over. Yesterday, exactly one month later, I traveled several miles and ascended/descended 1500 feet with a 60-pound load. The manageable pain was intermittent and only occurred when I ceased paying attention to my posture as I stood or walked. I am now convinced that it can only get better from here.
To make the trip more possible for a person of my age, or really, any age, without sacrificing safety I have streamlined my load and the resupplies along the route. In a one-time occurrence, the largest load will weigh 94 pounds. That will occur about 400 miles into the trip in the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness, between Johnson Lake and Queener Basin. And like all the loads, this weight will drop by approximately 5 pounds per day.
Now in the beginning days of September 2014, I am firmly resolved to continue the trips no later than February 1, 2015. Nor does this announcement come lightly, or should I say haphazardly? Although I have no doubt some would like to argue with me about the real meaning of that word.
Goldstone Lake in the Southern Bitterroot Range. Located at the head of Bloody Dick Creek Canyon, near Goldstone Pass on the Montana and Idaho border, which is also the Continental Divide.
As I traipsed up the hillside of Mount Helena 90, 60, and then only 30 days ago, I asked myself repeatedly why I should keep going. Wasn’t it already clear enough that my days of carrying a load were over?
On the Fourth of July weekend my wife, Carleen, the dogs, and I day hiked to Johnson Lake in Montana’s Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness, five miles beyond the trailhead, and retrieved a four-day cache, which I placed there the previous autumn. Going in I doubt I was carrying 25 pounds. During the exit the load was approximately 45 pounds, and too much for my back. Carleen offered numerous times to relieve me of at least some of the load. I refused and finally requested that she not to ask anymore, which she obliged. At the first of two bridge crossings on Falls Fork Rock Creek, we encountered another day hiker. Seeing the pain I was in, he offered to carry the load. Although tempted, I also turned his good deed away. We saw him again three quarters of an hour later. At this point, the pain was so excruciating, I was stopping every 100 to 200 feet. Once more, he offered to carry the load, which I again turned down. I eventually arrived at the trailhead, though I was near the end of my rope. The following day we hiked up another canyon similar in distance and elevation. This time Carleen carried the pack without any complaints from me for the entire trip.
The Fourth of July weekend was about seven weeks ago. During that time, I have had very little hope that I would ever get to backpack again, much less continue the Continental Divide trips for the next three winters. I continued to ask myself the rhetorical question of why I should keep going, whose real meaning was “I want to quit”. But I kept going. As recently as two weeks ago, Carleen carried my seven-pound camera bag out of the backcountry in the southern Bitterroot Range of the Big Hole Valley. She enthusiastically observed that I carried a 25 or 30-pound load 5 miles in an ascent of close to 2000 feet, a feat I was unable to do one month earlier. She accused that event as being progress, while I disagreed. For heaven’s sakes, in less than six months, I was going to have to carry upwards of 90 to 100 pounds, five to seven hours every day while wearing snowshoes! Yeah, some kind of progress.
Still carrying approximately 20 pounds on my back, we had to stop often until the pain subsided enough for us to continue toward the vehicle. Then something happened. We were within one mile of the vehicle when I called for what turned out to be the final stop. As we started moving again, I recalled what a yoga therapist fruitlessly tried to explain to me three weeks earlier. To minimize the pain as I walked I would attempt to curve my spine in the direction I was walking, while keeping my body upright, rather than hunched over. It worked! The pain disappeared for the remainder of the walk.
Nevertheless, on the chance that it was a fluke I said nothing to Carleen about it until the next day during the exit of another canyon similar to the previous day. Once I verified that the previous day’s experience was bona fide by carrying the same load unassisted, that I had finally hit pay dirt, only then did I tell her about it.
After that day I progressed with ever larger loads until finally two days ago I carried 70.5 pounds on Mount Helena and covered a distance of one and three-quarter miles in one hour. No pain! Encouraged tremendously, the following day I changed out the smaller 20-year-old backpack for the newer and larger backpack. I also included an additional 21 ounces of water, all of which increased my load to 75.5 pounds. The result was a new day, a different experience, and not a pleasant one. For approximately half of the one-hour walk I was on the edge of low-level pain.
I was 300 feet from the asphalt of the city streets when once again I silently asked myself what the use was to continue. This was the same incantation of five months earlier when I was without a load, and then repeatedly through the remainder of spring and again this summer. It is almost as if my head has only one answer for pain and being uncomfortable: Quit. Hell, a barnyard chicken has a larger variety of cackles than that.
So here’s the deal concerning my carrying over 70 pounds for the third day running. I will do my normal stretching and strengthening exercises, put on that large pack and head up the hill. Because it is part of the scheduled strengthening and endurance training, I will also increase the amount of ascending/descending for the day, and travel a greater distance. And when my head once again starts its singular cackle, I will keep walking and climbing.
I have begun to progress strongly with the strength and endurance training for the continuation of next winter’s trip on the Continental Divide. However, one part of my body is not progressing. The painful sciatic nerve condition in my lower back continues to hamper me. Yesterday I did what I now consider a light walk by ascending more than 1700 feet over a distance of 5.3 miles in approximately 2 hours.
I came off the walk feeling okay. With a 500 square feet carpet-cleaning job in front of me though, I was unsure how the rest of the day would go. As it turned out, by the time I left the job site in the latter afternoon, pain was piercing through the small of my back. For the remainder of the day and then in bed last night the back wobbled between painful and uncomfortable.
With that in mind, for today and tomorrow, I have two larger sized carpet-cleaning jobs to complete. For that reason, there will be no training today and likely none tomorrow. The largest job, at 1200 square feet combined with 15 stairs that have to be hand cleaned on my knees, is today. Tomorrow’s work is approximately 2/3 that size, and fortunately is without stairs.
This route has a resounding familiarity. It looks like last summer’s training, which is how I ended up ill prepared in 2013 for the winter Continental Divide trip that was to begin in February. Besides the two illnesses in September and November, there were other substantial interferences through last summer, autumn, and early winter with my daily exercising, which in turn contributed heavily to my failures last winter.
I note that until the winter of 2008, which was when I completed a 150-mile double crossing of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, I exercised two hours every day, that included an additional 10 to 12 minutes of resistance training. Often I would do this while carrying a 45-pound backpack. Afterwards I would clean carpet for much of the day. Now with my aging body and in particular because of my back, I am unable to maintain that schedule. Yet that is exactly the level I have to be at if I am to have any chance at continuing the Continental Divide trip next winter. While I will not be walking or resistance training today and probably not tomorrow, I will have to get to that level this summer, in the next 30 days. Beyond that, at some point I am going to have to start training with a load on my back. Hell!
In addition this summer, I must hike 254 miles of traveling along sections of the Continental Divide in Montana and Idaho. My daily exercises and carpet cleaning is similar to the regimen of climbing mountains with a load on my back. That is why I must be able to exercise daily on Mount Helena and then continue the rest of the day carpet cleaning. If I am unable to maintain this daily level, there is ample reason to doubt my ability to climb with a heavy pack on for multiple days and weeks this summer, much less next winter when the load is far bigger and the travel conditions are far worse.
Through the years, I have found that regardless of the doubts and feelings of hopelessness, which is the state of my present condition, I must continue exercising, work through the pain, and attain that higher level of physical fitness. It almost goes without saying that at times like this it becomes necessary to use the action of one day at a time, or if need be, break it down to just putting one foot in front of the other.
You got to know when to hold em know when to fold em know when to walk away
know when to run
You never count your money when you’re sitting at the table
there’ll be time enough for counting when the dealing is done
now every gambler knows the secret to surviving
is knowing what to throw away and knowing what to keep
cause every hand’s a winner and every hand’s a loser
and the best you can hope for is to die in your sleep.
The Gambler
Sung by Kenny Rogers
The sore ligament on the inner side of the left knee announced its existence on the third afternoon with just a touch of soreness. By 5 PM of the fourth day, and now on the Continental Divide Trail for 24 hours, the pain had increased sharply. Alarmed, as I built camp, my doubts began to gnaw at me concerning my ability to continue the trip. A mental shrug. The following morning would be the time to consider this train of thought. For now, it was enough to get the camp properly built in the semi powder on the 6-foot deep snowpack. Tonight was going to be chilly again, this time with a brisk wind.
I slept fitfully through the night. Depending upon which shoulder I lay on, that particular hand and arm would grow numb and painful. For the first time on this trip, lying flat was painful to the small of my back. At 2:30 AM, with 5 ½ hours of sleep, I gave up and crawled halfway out of the sleeping bag, up for the day. With the first flex of the left leg I let out a gasp, as pain shot out from the knee joint. I was still unsure of what would come of this. After several moments, the pain subsided and I went to work on erecting my camp chair.
After daylight, with my outer clothing on and my gear ready for the backpack, I crawled out of the tent, stood up, took two steps, and with the painful jabbing in my knee, I knew I was finished and dropped back into the tent. Bob Stantus of Island Park, Idaho and president of the Fugowee Snowmobile Club, was already aware of the trouble with my left knee, and was standing by to extract me. I sent him the message with my satellite connected personal locator device. At 1:48 PM, he and one other rescuer arrived. The Continental Divide winter trip of 2014 along the Montana and Idaho border was over.
While waiting for my rescuers I contemplated the future of the Continental Divide winter trip to the Canadian border. No, I was not done, or maybe I was and was unaware of it. What was certain, I would first have to heal up that knee, which hopefully I had not damaged, but only strained. I also knew I would be unable to approach the trip in the same preparatory manner that I had leading up to the winter of 2014. My lack of physical preparation was the main reason my left knee was in trouble. I had spent thousands of dollars preparing the food, replacing equipment and scouting the route through the summer and autumn of 2013. What I failed to do, something years of experience made clear, and was critical to any winter expedition trip, was proper physical preparation. Two months of exercise combined with the lackadaisical exercising of several other months did not cut the mustard. My body needed an approximate period of one year of strength and endurance training, starting with two hours on Mount Helena of ascending and descending at least 2000 feet per day. My knee had collapsed under the strain of traveling for only a few hours while carrying approximately 70 pounds. In Glacier National Park three years earlier, during the March trip, my load had been over 90 pounds. I had traveled 19 miles in four days and ascended 3200 feet. Then I exited in three days. It was a normal load for this type of trip, replaced two trips later by over 100 pounds of pack weight. Clearly, I was not in the same physical condition in the snowpack around Yellowstone National Park in 2014.
Now 62 years old, and according to some, in denial about my capacity to travel with a winter expedition load, I am nevertheless aware that people 60 to 80 years old, have with proper preparation, ascended Mount Everest. Considering what happens to the body at those high altitudes, this is an incredible testimony of what the body is capable of, if properly prepared. I failed to do that.
Sitting on the backpack waiting for Bob and Dan, I realized that the training for the continuation of the winter trip along the Continental Divide in 2015 had to begin now. There was only 11 months remaining before the trip would begin. For this reason, the two failed trips in February and March 2014 were themselves not losses but wake up calls about the preparation required to complete this project. In short, back off, alter the route through preparations, and return in February or March 2015. Because like the gambler said…
On March 17, 2014, I will attempt to continue snowshoeing along Montana’s portion of the Continental Divide. The trip began on February 1 and abruptly ended on February 6 with the snowmobile ride to West Yellowstone, Montana. There were a number of reasons for the exit, any one of which would have required my postponement of the trip.
The yet to be resolved issue of whether I had high-altitude sickness or carbon monoxide poisoning. Since I was at the elevation of 8200 feet for most of those days, I am leaning toward the carbon monoxide poisoning.
I was not in good enough shape to carry the nearly 100-pound load.
Snowstorms in February dropped exorbitant amounts of powder snow, which from the outset prevented my movement in spite of the large backcountry snowshoes I use.
Because I will begin traveling from Macks Inn, Idaho, there is now an additional 15 miles. However, I may alter the route further on in the Eastern Centennial Mountains that will undo the extra miles. With that said, I still have approximately 462 miles to attempt to complete no later than the middle of May. With at least a 70-pound load, it is unlikely I will complete that distance in 60 days. I would have to maintain a daily average of 7.7 miles. The more realistic average will be five miles per day for the first 30 days and possibly eight miles per day for the second 30 days.
Coming up short could be a blessing though. With the above average snowpack in the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness, the last segment I will travel through this winter, after the middle of April and into May the raging spring avalanches could be fatal. Less than seven days ago, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted a possible El Niño weather pattern for this year. Where the Continental Divide in Montana is concerned, that interprets into a low snowpack and warmer temperatures for next winter, something I would much prefer while traveling through the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness.
Having lost 1 ½ months of travel time, in an attempt to increase my pace to a five mile per day average, I have lowered the backpack’s weight to below 75 pounds. West of Monida Pass and along the Southern Bitterroot Range, I will try to increase the daily distance to 10 miles per day. Once I arrive at the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness however, this level of mileage will be impossible.
Because the travel will be half again to double the normal pace, I will only need one-half to three quarters of the caches along the route. A four-day cache with an allotment of 7150 calories per day will now become an approximate eight-day supply. That means, barring any delays, there are far more supplies along the route then I can possibly consume. In short, a lighter load to carry.
Although it will increase the peril of the trip, with the exception of the crampons and ice ax, the climbing gear will remain behind. Additionally, I will no longer need the heavier sleeping gear that protects me from prolonged winter travel combined with temperatures down to 40 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.
Meanwhile battery power for my equipment continues to be an issue. For that reason, using the personal locator device I will only send a progress report once a day to Facebook and Twitter. I will also exit overnight at Raynolds Pass, 63 miles into the trip, Monida Pass at 149 miles, and Chief Joseph Pass at 351 miles each to upload files and recharge the batteries. By leaving three camera batteries behind, I will save 17 ounces, but lose half of my ability to take 4800 digital captures. Finally, I will carry less AA and AAA batteries for such equipment as my head lantern.
Near the Montana, Idaho and Wyoming border in Yellowstone National Park
What happened?
Six days after it began, the Continental Divide trip may be off permanently. As of this date less than one week later, what happened out there remains unresolved. It is however, something that cannot stay a mystery.
Within minutes of beginning the trip, why did I have difficulty breathing?
Why was there no evidence of the months of strength and endurance training before the trip?
Why did I have a headache for over 36 hours that ibuprofen and water was unable to remove?
Why was I dizzy throughout that six days, and continue to be to this moment?
Why did I continue to want to throw up one day after the snowmobilers transported me to the lower elevation of West Yellowstone, Montana?
Why did food taste off including the day after my extraction?
On February 1, 2014, the Fugowee Snowmobile Club from Island Park, Idaho dropped me at the designated location 2.8 miles from the Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming border. Under a partly cloudy sky with a breeze, I stepped off the snowmobile tracks on the road and into what appeared to be one and two feet of freshly fallen snow. Using snowshoes to get through the powder, it was as much as I had ever experienced, though nothing extraordinary. Through the years, I had encountered plenty of deep powder snow. Nor was the terrain extreme. I was on the western border of Yellowstone National Park in a combination of slightly rolling hills and near flat terrain.
Within minutes and in spite of being on some older snowmobile tracks, albeit now snow filled, I began to realize I had a problem. I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. It worsened when I pushed through the untouched powder between one set of old tracks to the next while continuing a general northeast direction toward the tri-border. Inside of 10 steps, the deeper untouched snowpack between the tracks turned the struggle into a bad dream.
Ascending the gully on the first day.
When I finally arrived at the end of the last set of tracks inside a small gully, without hesitation I dropped my at least 80 pound pack. Then still carrying the more than 7-pound chest camera bag, I began to build trail through a virgin snowpack. Within half a minute, I was again struggling to catch my breath as I pushed through more than two feet of powder. The gully was no more than a 15° grade, yet in less than a minute, I began to take the type of breaks reserved for carrying a load up a steep slope. Granted I was plowing through an increasingly deeper snow with my large backcountry snowshoes, but this just didn’t seem right.
I continued up the gully for approximately half an hour before I turned back to retrieve the backpack. In spite of the broken trail and the descending grade back, I stopped for numerous breathers.
With the pack back on, I headed back up the gully on the fresh and twice-packed 2-foot deep trench. Once again, I stopped every 30 seconds and breathed for a minute and a half, often longer. After almost 3.75 hours of travel, exhausted, I was approximately 1 mile from the drop off point on the snowmobile road when I stopped for the day and built camp. The elevation of my camp was approximately 8200 feet. This was almost double what my body was used from 24 hours earlier in Helena Montana.
Lying on my back later that evening, I checked my heart rate. It was still over 100 bpm. In addition, for 59 minutes out of the 219 minutes I traveled my heart rate had been over 155 bpm. Experience said that number should never have gone over 140 bpm, much less for nearly an hour. More alarming was my present heart rate. An unhealthy person sitting in the recliner watching television will have a heartbeat of approximately 90 bpm.
As twilight settled on the early evening of the first day, the storm began.
In another unusual turn, I slept fitfully through the night and then every night thereafter. In the backcountry during the winter, I normally slept 10 and 12 hours. The 36-hour headache woke me at 1:45 AM.
The following morning my tracks of the previous day had almost disappeared under the continuing snowfall. In spite of the difficulty of the day before, I continued toward the Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming (MIW) border. I broke camp and then left my loaded pack behind as I built a quarter mile length trail up to the Continental Divide.
Snow storm on the second day.
Once again unable to catch my breath, during my return, I began to doubt there would be any travel with the pack that day. I reunited with my backpack breathing hard, and the day was over. I built a camp 300 feet up my new trail; one I would stay in for the next two nights. I now believed that for me to get to the MIW border, a crust I could walk on would first have to form on the snowpack. In addition was my now strong alarm at my inability to breathe at an elevation of only 8200 feet.
Using my personal locator device, I established contact with Bob Stantus of the Fugowee Snowmobile Club while in the second camp. He proffered whatever assistance was in his power to give, including delivering more fuel, which was now in short supply. Although I was unsure what I would be doing in the near future, an extraction was beginning to look like a distinct possibility.
In addition, although I brought approximately one week of fuel, after the unexpected large consumption at the first camp, I curtailed the hot meals. Fruit and nuts are nourishing. Nevertheless, within a short time, perhaps a day, eating only this cold food became difficult and at times downright nauseating. My appetite soon fell to almost nothing.
On the morning of February 4 the storm had exited, leaving behind two and three feet of snow.
With snowdrifts building, over a 36-hour period the storm dropped two or three feet of snow on my camp. The trail I built to the Divide ceased to exist, as did the one coming from the road. On the fourth day, I sent a message to Bob that I would leave my camp intact and build a trail part way back to the road and requested that he extract me within the next few days. He asked if I would be able to get back by Wednesday, the following day. I got his responding message at the turnaround point where I had just built the trail toward the road.
I had to rest five minutes before I could send the responding message. Based on what I had just experienced building the trail to that point, with the snowshoes dropping through the powder sometimes down 3 feet, still approximately half a mile from the road, I had strong doubts I would be able to arrive until Thursday, 48 hours from this afternoon. My wife had also sent a forecast which among other things called for wind. I told Bob if a wind came in and destroyed the trail I had just built, which I would not be using until the following day; I might play hell getting back to the road by Friday.
Arriving back at my camp, besides being breathless, I was now gagging. I collapsed inside the sleeping bag and continued to want to throw up. That night the fitful sleep was interspersed with many hours of wakefulness.
The three-foot length snowshoes were nearly buried by the storm.
The following day in what seemed like a turn in fortune; my hard built trail was still intact. Grateful, I needed 30 minutes to get my pack down to the end of the trail. I figured I would be building camp there, but decided to continue down the ravine in search of a location that would provide a more level camp and trees to anchor the tent. Leaving the pack behind again, five minutes later the gully entered a larger valley. And I was standing on fresh snowmobile tracks, which had plowed through the powder I could barely travel in! I knew then that I was going to make it back to the road that day.
When I stopped in the late afternoon, I had traveled approximately two thirds of one mile on the road toward Island Park, Idaho.
That night the temperature dropped to approximately 40 below zero Fahrenheit in West Yellowstone and Island Park. My watch thermometers only functioned down to 29 below zero making it impossible for me to know how cold it got inside the tent. While I was nearly unaffected by the cold, my gear did not fare as well. Most of the water froze. Simultaneously it took 20 minutes to get a flame on the gas stove.
As the outside temperature rose above zero, I came up with another plan. I would stay on the official Continental Divide trail, which was also the snowmobile road I was presently on, and continue the trip. With the packed road to travel on, I attached my 5-pound snowshoes to the pack rather than wear them. In a great mystery, the flotation devices garnered too much weight for me to heft the load. Cursing at the pack and my lack of strength, I reattached them to my boots and began traveling on the road in a northwest heading.
I traveled 100 feet on the almost level track before I stopped to catch my breath. Thereafter I stopped every 30 seconds for a minute and a half or more to calm my breathing. In half an hour, the gagging began again. The dizziness had been with me for the entire trip, but now seemed to increase. Sensing something was very wrong 75 minutes after beginning the walk, I sent another message to Carleen and Bob letting them know that I was dizzy and gagging.
Although there was a slight breeze to cool things down even more, at 16°F the temperature was perfect for the type of walking I was doing. Unfortunately, I could not walk fast enough to warm up with my standard layers for that temperature. Approximately two hours into the walk, I dropped the pack for the third time and struggled with retrieving my pullover fleece jacket. That’s when the Canadian snowmobilers coming in from West Yellowstone arrived and offered assistance. For the first time in my decades of backcountry travel, I accepted the aid. It was there that I first heard the mention of high-altitude sickness. I said nothing while completely disbelieving that was the problem. For heaven’s sakes, we were only at 8000 feet!
The snowmobilers got me back to West Yellowstone and a warm facility in approximately 1 ½ hours. Later that evening Carleen revealed that after talking to a friend who is a doctor, on his advice she had called the Island Park Search and Rescue. After hearing from her some of my symptoms that she had learned about through my messages, our friend declared that it was essential to get me out of there that day that I was probably suffering from high-altitude sickness. Again, I quietly disbelieved what I was hearing. Had these people forgotten the elevations I was at during extended periods of travel?
The following Monday (I refused medical attention until Monday morning four days after the extraction) a nurse stated my blood pressure was on a par with a teenager’s during the medical examination. Later after blood was drawn and an EKG performed, the physician’s assistant began leaning heavily toward my problem being HAPE (high-altitude pulmonary edema) or HACE (high-altitude cerebral edema). As of this writing, the final diagnosis is at least 48 hours out while I continued to take a regimen of ibuprofen as a means to lessen any swelling. Meanwhile . . .
Unless medical personnel say otherwise, by this upcoming weekend I will be on McDonald Pass carrying at least a 50-pound load and training at 6325 feet with the snowshoes for 2 to 4 hours per day. I will wait long enough, perhaps two weeks for a crust to form before returning to the Continental Divide near Yellowstone National Park. I am now leaning toward continuing the trip beginning at Targhee Pass and completing the Henrys Lake Mountains section of the trip, a distance of 15 miles, which has a number of avalanche chutes to surmount. Of more importance, the elevation is 9000 feet or more while at least two locations will be over 10,000 feet. I reconnoitered this area the previous June without incident.
I am also holding out the possibility that my backcountry trips are over. While I plan to continue the trip, if it becomes conclusive that I suffered from high-altitude sickness, I may cancel the trip. However, I will not pretend. I want to complete the trip and must continue preparing my body and mind for the eventual continuation of the winter travel along Montana’s portion of the Continental Divide.
There is plenty of snow on Montana’s Continental Divide as of January 10, 2014. When I return from the two training trips in Henrys Lake and Centennial Mountains approximately January 27, I will throw some photos up of what I saw.
Glacier National Park personnel repeatedly stated that during the winter the high mountain cirque, Hole in the Wall was inaccessible. They were almost right.
This is the story and photos of four trips that almost took the author’s life twice.
