Day 102


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Red Eagle Lake to Morning Star Lake
14 mi ::
1367 mi ::
Sunny, warm

Sleeping until 6:30 feels like sleeping in. I have a leisurely breakfast followed by hot cocoa, and start up the trail around 8:30, feeling luxuriously lazy.

I still make it up Triple Divide Pass by noon. I have lunch there to maximize my time up high. The triple divide is point on a peak just to the west where the divides between the Pacific, Atlantic, and Hudson Bay meet. I try to imagine the landscape descending to the different bodies of water in each direction.

There are goats with kids laying around just below the pass. They aren’t mountain goats, but they don’t look domestic either. They are blamed for much of Glacier Park’s giardia problem. Beyond them multiple hanging valleys shelter lakes that spill down in waterfalls at one end.

Headed down again, my mind drifts to various points in past. I think of problems I’ve worked on in school and during my career, and wonder what’s in store. Before I know it I’ve arrived at my campsite, with the whole afternoon in front of me. I wash my suffering socks while a moose bull takes a bath across the lake. He shakes his antlers, drinks, and just stands around in the ice cold water.

A small guided group arrives. Cory, the guide, works at Big Mountain ski area in the winter and guides in the summer. She likes her life. In between seasons she has time for her own pack trips in places like Chile.

The question for tomorrow is where to camp after I meet Ann without spending a bundle. Cory and a passing ranger both thought the park campground at Two Medicine lake would be the best deal. I’ll hike through there, so I can check it out.


8 responses to “Day 102”

  1. Dear Ann, dear Dylan,

    we are following up your travel report via internet. Dylan, for your 32th birthday we would like to wish you all the best!
    Since our visit to the US we have traveled several times to France and also made some trips within Germany.
    All the best,
    Marlies and Arnold

  2. When I got a message on my phone from NAME today asking if Dylan and I were still a couple, and then read the message from Michael & Julie wondering about my silence, I thought maybe I oughta put in a word or two!!!!

    Yes we are still a couple! And Yes I am still on a journey… a different journey than the one I planned, but a journey along the Continental Divide nonetheless. Quite a different journey from Dylan’s, but paralelling him; I’m with him, but also separate from him. It’s a good and challenging journey… sometimes I’m lonely, sometimes I wish I made better use of my time and trip and the opportunities than I do, but in general I’m learning a lot about myself and the U.S. and the people in it! I make friends nearly every day. Last night I had dinner with five strangers around a campfire. Everyone shared everything, and one couple let me shower in the their R.V. this morning. Wow did that feel nice… first in 5 days… living out of one’s car one sees a different side of thing and people. I’ve met no one who wasn’t friendly! And many who are extremely generous and thoughtful!

    I’m really proud of Dylan, and didn’t really think for two minutes of him not continuing, which was our original agreement. (i.e., start together, stop together). He just comes alive out there. When we hit the San Juans in southern Colorado and all that snow and I just was weeping and cursing all the time, he was lit up, happy, energized and enlivened by being in the mountains, only holding himself back to help me through! Which he did, very patiently, very kindly. So there was no option of preventing his continuing, not if I loved him, which I certainly do!!! We just had our first anniversary–can you believe it? I hiked 15 miles through Grizzly country alone to meet and spend the night with him in Bob Marshall Wilderness on Sunday, and then back out. (NOTE TO SELF: NEVER DO THAT AGAIN. WAY TOO SCAREY!!!) Typical though, of my life with Dylan: He encourages me to try things. I get scared. I cry. I freak out. He remains calm and loving, if not entirely reassuring, through the event. And then I decide if I’ll do that particular thing again or not. Sometimes yes, sometimes no!!! It’s better than not trying out of fear. Now I know!

    I’ll try to comment more now. I’m getting into the routine of stopping in at libraries along the way.

    Thanks for everybody’s love, support and interest!

    Ann

  3. Bad A$$ ANN,

    I just loved your entry. It’s beautiful. Happy Anniversary! If you were here in ‘Crest, we’d throw you guys a party. I’m glad you are enjoying this part of the journey too, I was thinking it wasn’t as interesting as hiking. It sounds like you’re still having an adventure though!

    Yes, please stay away from the Grizzlies.

    Clare

  4. I wish I had time, energy and the discipline to do something like the trip you two are undertaking. Sounds fun, educational and personally rehabilitating.

    Good Luck,
    ill be following the site from now on, I am a friend and ex-co-worker of Pete Bergmans…

    Tai

  5. Hello Ann and Dylan,

    Great to hear from you, Ann. Talked to Dan on his birthday and he told me what a trip it was to walk in grizzly bear country. You know what? I won’t do it!

    He also told me, Dylan, how much joy he felt as you follow in the same sort of footsteps he loves, and many more of them, oy vey is mir, 30 miles mon!

    Ann, we were not wondering whether you were a couple, just wanting to hear from you too. What you wrote was GREAT! Thanks!

    You two loves keep having a honey sweet time, alone, together, beneath sun and moon. When you love, you are always together, anyway.

    Love and hugs from m&j

  6. It’s been awhile since either Dylan or Ann got to add anything here, so I’m just reporting that I heard from them, calling me on the cell phone from MacDonald Pass just north of Butte, MOntana. I hadn’t read Ann’s comments above and, like Michael and Julie (HI!!), am really moved by them. I spent almost a week with Ann in Steamboat Springs, three days of it with both Dylan and Ann, and loved it all. They are in great shape, those two. Anyway, my last word was on Sunday, August 10, and apparently they are now out of grizzly country mostly. I’m so pleased that so many people are interested and keeping up.

  7. 8-17-04

    NO, NAME, we did not go into a bar and not come out; I think that may have been YOU. Actually…. there’ve been some technical difficulties of the electronic kind. I’m in Anaconda, MT now, where I just finished typing up several days of Dylan’s journals and saving them to his handheld computer (“Zaurus”), as well as recharging it from a dead dead battery. Solar panels just don’t cut it yet–they overheat!!! and it’s not often that we have electricity available to us. Hopefully he’ll be able to send the posts to his website next Thursday, when I’ll be seeing him again.

    Anyway, we’re doing okay… Interestingly, Dylan and I both hit the doldrums hard last week; he felt like he was just ticking off miles and I felt like I was waiting waiting waiting. Even one’s dream vacation can become routine!!!! We agreed the other morning that we’ve had too much healthiness and sunshine, that there was nothing we’d rather do than crawl into a dark den and watch movies and movies and drink coffee in ridiculous quantities, probably with Irish whiskey, or something the like.

    But I think we got through it and have become engaged again. Dylan started creating artificial ways of entertaining himself: Bushwhacking routes he didn’t have to, and navigating by the sun (no compass, no gps) in very confusing areas of unmarked logging roads and ATV tracks. !!! I have always listened to NPR stations, but here on the road I suck them up like a sponge. My ideal campsite is this: Free, about 1-6 miles off a paved road, with perfect NPR reception!

    Last night was the most insane weather yet. I thought the tent was going to blow away–it certainly filled with rain blowing in the sides. Then it rained all night long. I wonder how Dylan weathered it? The touring cyclist from Silver City who I met and befriended in a coffee shop was about drowned when he pulled off the highway into my camp last night! Glenn is retired from the Navy and is doing a large loop through Texas, Colorado, South and North Dakota, Montana, and so on. His interests are primarily historical, and he spends a lot of time in libraries reading the local history. I admire his enthusiasm and motivation as well and discipline, and his company was welcome! Some people might think it’s strange that I can meet a stranger and share a camp, but it’s what we do to stay engaged and connected on the road… We fear becoming too eccentric in our aloneness, and perhaps we end up accentuating it by consorting with other eccentrics!

    I’m particularly chatty today… but my computer time is up.

    Thanks for all your kind notes.

    Ann

  8. DAMMIT! i wanted some sort of wicked mystery to this whole thing. like some Hollywood crap… so yer all alive and well… shux. .. err, THAT’S GREAT!

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