Tag: Garfield Mountain

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Trip’s Beginning, Ferrying the Load

During the ascent of Sawmill Creek ridgeline on the still visible Continental Divide Trail.

Yesterday, December 1, 2018, the approximate date I was to begin traveling along Montana and Idaho’s portion of the Continental Divide, I sort of did begin. Throughout the last several years, in the Sawmill Creek area I have lost four resupplies to the “Finders keepers, losers weepers” crowd who frequent the area during the autumn. So this year I did a couple things different.

First, in October I located the resupply a much greater distance from the trailhead, and then placed it on a steep forested North face slope. What I did second, yesterday, was make it back up there and ascertain the resupply was still in the tree. Moreover, just in case it was not, I brought a replacement. As it turned out, the cache was still there.

On December 1, 2018, the resupply on Sawmill Creek ridgeline, the first of 25 placed on Montana and Idaho’s portion of the Continental Divide

Last night on the phone, my wife questioned the logic of what I did next. I left the second resupply at the location, giving me a total of 12 days of food and 20 days of fuel. Here is where foolish makes itself known. When I arrive there today with the rest of my load, and then load up what is already there, I will be pushing through the powder snow with a load that weighs 125 pounds. Again, from my previous post, I am clear that that amount of weight is ridiculous in the mountainous terrain I am attempting to get through.

On the other hand, I have known for quite some time that I would be ferrying the load during the beginning of the trip. There is no way that I can pull a singular load with that amount of weight through powder snow up a mountain.

When I break camp on December 3, this view and what is in it, awaits my efforts.

In addition to toting the resupply up the ridge yesterday, I also brought my tent and the entire kitchen. While today’s load getting up to the cached materials will be 80 pounds, that is still a whole lot better than the original 105 pounds I was doomed to bring.

Finally, I will not be leaving Lima Montana until after noon. That is when my ride will become available. In short, it is unlikely that I will make it beyond where my gear and food is presently located. I will lose daylight by 5 PM. Not only is darkness tough to work with getting things done, but it also brings colder temperatures into the mix.

Well, I suppose I won’t be going hungry anytime soon.

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Into the Bitterroot Range

In the summer of 1968, the year I turned 17, I visited a friend at his parent’s ranch in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley. It was June or August; I am unsure which. The reason I know it was one of those two months was because they were bucking bales of hay, 85 to 95 pounds of twined grass for the following winter’s feeding of their cattle. A difficult job, throwing those scratchy, heavy and awkward bales onto the flatbed trailer, where someone else stacked them neatly in layers. The work required lots of upper body strength, leather gloves and regardless of how hot the day may have been, wearing a long sleeve shirt.

Day-7 of 11 during the final leg of travel in the Centennial Mountains of Idaho and Montana.

On the ground strolling next to the moving trailer were three men. They were throwing the bales up to the man on the growing stack of hay. One of these men was a shocker for me. My friend’s grandfather, and he was old! I said nothing as I watched this guy stay up with the younger men. To me he was a phenomenon. All the people I knew that were his age, the World War I generation, had retired, were drawing pensions and sitting around waiting for that last breath and the stilling of their hearts.

Not him! He was strolling on that field at about 2 miles per hour picking up those bales, throwing them, and occasionally cussing when one would penetrate his long sleeve shirt and scratch his arm. He absolutely did not belong out there and yet there he was refusing that rocking chair.

That year also marked the 50th anniversary of when the Doughboys fought in France, thereby ending the Great War. He was one of those soldiers or marine.

Watching the old man and seeing the difference, inwardly I shook my head. I figured I would be one of those who would quit; claiming old age, rather than go down like him pushing the envelope to the very end.

A year after that momentous occasion I joined the Army and went to Vietnam. Now 50 years later, I may have been wrong about me.

In a matter of hours, I will connect the sled to the backpack, slip into the snowshoe harnesses, throw the backpack on, and travel into the great and barren wilderness of the Bitterroot Range for an unknown number of weeks. This will be my longest leg yet with 52 miles to travel and 28 days of supplies to get me through 11,000 feet of ascending and descending.

Quit hell! Maybe tomorrow.

Day-6 of 11, north face travel, 3 days of it in steep and forested terrain. Final leg of travel in the Centennial Mountains of Montana and Idaho.