Posted on September 2, 2015September 2, 2015 by Richard — Leave a comment

Revamp for the winter of 2015-2016

CD012014003 — Mile Creek Canyon located on the west side of Henrys Lake Mountains in southwestern Montana. (Click on any picture for clear enlargement.)

Now the beginning of September, assembly of the caches or resupplies for the winter snowshoe trip of 2015-2016 have begun.

The gear and resupplies for the winter trips on the Continental Divide.

This is my third attempt at the first of three sections on the Continental Divide from the Wyoming border to the Canadian border in Glacier National Park. It is also the third time I have prepared resupplies for this area. Frankly, I have grown weary of placing the packages in the autumn only to retrieve them the following spring and early summer. With that said, numerous alterations continue with the resupplies, the load, and the trip itself. Here are the main changes.

• Continued to become more familiar with the route.

• Altered portions of the route to avoid bringing mountaineering gear.

• Shortened the distance for the upcoming winter.

• Made photography gear changes.

• Altered the food variety.

Camped on a saddle on top of the Continental Divide in Henrys Lake Mountains. Bald Peak (10,180 ft.) is in the background. — Camped on a saddle on the Continental Divide in Henrys Lake Mountains. Bald Peak (10,180 ft.) is in the background.

During the first days of June, on a receding snowpack I traveled in Henrys Lake Mountains. In July, I was in the southern portion of the Bitterroot Range near the Big Hole Valley. In August, I traveled in the Centennial Mountains. As a result, I altered three areas of the route.

HLM060815387 — Black Mountain (10,237 ft.) on the Continental Divide in Henrys Lake Mountains

Although it will still be necessary to bring mountaineering gear in Henrys Lake Mountains, I changed the route at two locations in an attempt to get through the most hazardous 15 miles of it with a greater margin of safety and perhaps more quickly.

Red Rock Mountain (9500 ft.) and Mt. Jefferson (10,203 ft.) in the Centennial Mountains.

While it may be a mistake, I will omit the mountaineering gear when I travel through 60 miles of the Centennial Mountains. Rather than an ascent between Red Rock Mountain (9500 ft.) and Mt. Jefferson(10,203 ft.), my route will take me through the much milder Hell Roaring Canyon two miles west of the original ascent, which is also where the official Continental Divide Trail (CDT) is located.

The view north of Goldstone Pass in the Bitterroot Range. — The view north of Goldstone Pass in the Bitterroot Range near the Big Hole Valley.

Approximately 150 miles later, in the southern Bitterroot Range, north of Goldstone Pass, and once again carrying mountaineering gear, I will drop off the Continental Divide and follow the summer route of the CDT. These changes combined will shorten the route by seven miles.

In addition, I shortened next winter’s overall route by 120 miles. Rather than attempt to arrive on Interstate Highway 15, 30 miles southwest of Butte Montana, I will stop at Chief Joseph Pass on Highway 43. The distance I will attempt to travel through one winter is now only 338 miles rather than the original 460 miles. It had been my intention for the last two winters to include the 60 miles of Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness (APW) during the latter part of the winter season when the snowpack is the most stable.

Goat Flat area and Storm Lake Pass in Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness.

The steep and treeless slopes of the APW are nothing to trifle with between January and March. Oh well, I suppose it will be good practice for when I return to Glacier National Park a few winters up the trail.

Over the last several years, I have been incrementally shedding my load of professional photography gear. This year I took what I consider a giant step in this area. I started carrying a consumer level camera and lens while still carrying a wide-angle professional lens. The weight of my camera gear dropped to five pounds. During the winter of 2006, I carried 16 pounds of camera gear. While I am unsure how this will turn out, if I am wrong I can always retrieve the pro gear at one of the four road crossings during the trip.

Through the last two winters, my heaviest loads were more than 100 pounds. This upcoming winter my heaviest load, which will occur only once along the route, should be less than 70 pounds. Unfortunately, it will happen in some of the most dangerous terrain of next winter’s travel, Henrys Lake Mountains.

Near Lionhead Mountain in Henrys Lake Mountains with a load approaching 100 pounds.

The changes in my food will not necessarily lower the weight of the load. Nevertheless, it has become necessary to do something different. The dehydrated food I have been using for almost 10 years turns my stomach. This year I have replaced it with four varieties of freeze-dried food. In addition to palatability, the freeze-dried food gives me increased calories and protein. Losing backpack weight, as necessary as it obviously has become, is a moot point if I do not have the energy to travel due to a lack of eating what is in the pack. I need a minimum of 6000 calories per day to sustain me for approximately 2.5 months of winter travel. My previous supplies failed to do that although there was always more than 5000 calories per day in the food bag. Hell, what good is a larder if I am unable to eat from it?

After the last two winters of failures, I have little doubt that the original 460 miles is out of reach in a single winter. Admittedly, this decision to shorten the distance comes with plenty of hesitation. What if, as remote as it might be, what if there are still three weeks of winter remaining when I arrive at Chief Joseph Pass?

On December 21, 2014 in the parking lot of Chief Joseph Pass.

Hmmm, this is familiar ground; too often, I have bitten off more than I can chew. The last two winters have more than amply demonstrated that. The 338 miles will have to suffice.

Posted on November 2, 2014November 3, 2014 by Richard — 2 Comments

Of Crusty Importance: El Nino

MP020114110 — 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.

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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.

Posted on October 13, 2014October 14, 2014 by Richard — 2 Comments

Discipline through Making Mistakes

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.

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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.

Posted on August 23, 2014 by Richard — 2 Comments

Progress: Ignoring the Cackle

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.

Posted on March 14, 2014March 14, 2014 by Richard — Leave a comment

The Continental Divide Winter Trip Resumes

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.

Posted on November 13, 2013February 22, 2014 by Richard — Leave a comment

Montana’s 990 Miles of Continental Divide in the Winter

To Snowshoe the Continental Divide in Montana

Blodgett canyon from the ascent of Blodgett Pass in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.

It was tough getting across the spine of the Bitterroot Range twice during the winter of 2008. Although the distance was approximately 140 miles and a La Niña weather pattern dominated the weather with continuous snowstorms, I had sufficient time to complete the trip. During the 40-day period between the middle of March to near the end of April, it nevertheless became clear that I was running out time. In the early morning hours, as I prepared for another day the effects of the previous day’s travel had me wrapped in a listless level of energy. While tempted to quit the trip at numerous points, I refused.

Continue reading Montana’s 990 Miles of Continental Divide in the Winter

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To Snowshoe the Continental Divide in Montana

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