SUMMARY: Maps are wonderful—they have everything all laid out to see. How can you lose? Well, when the trail decides to play hide ‘n seek! We started off OK with the climb over Bowen Pass, and had no trouble negotiating the snow cornice at the top, but the rest of the day was one frustration after another.

First, the trail disappeared in a meadow—no cairns, no posts, no nothing to mark the route. We finally found it, then it followed an old road that kept disappearing, along with the trail. Finally we just bushwhacked straight up a mountain to reconnect with the trail. Alas, then we missed a key turn (it went into a meadow, but we kept following what we thought was the trail, way down a mountain).

Finally, we realized our mistake, climbed back up, looked and looked for the CDT, and finally found it. Grand total CDT miles today: 11. We needed 18.  I figure we lost more than half a day with all this “playing hide ‘n seek trail.”

DETAILS:  No 4th of July firecrackers going off to wake us up today…and no pancake breakfast, either.  Oh well!  Happy Birthday, USA!   We saddled up and headed for Bowen Pass…but first we had to get by Bowen Mountain, which was very tall and blocked the morning sun, so we had no nice “sunpatch” to eat breakfast in.  Brrrrr!  The trail of course was climbing steadily up, and it was muddy, rocky and rooty.  That’s OK–I would rather deal with mud than with icy snow.  Finally we were high enough to leave the forest behind, and wow!  Gorgeous alpine country!  Wish we had more of this and less walking in the woods!

But the beautiful views also included the fact that there was a big snow cornice at the top of Bowen Pass.  Hmmm.  We stopped and looked at it–the conclusion was, “Looks do-able.”  We switchbacked up the face of the Pass, and when we reached the cornice, the trail of course disappeared under the snow.  No problem–we sort of sidled along sideways, just below the cornice, till we found a spot where we could safely climb over it.  Up top, the view was awesome!

Then it was down, down the other side, until the trail disappeared (sigh) into a big mountainside meadow.  There were no rock cairns, no posts, no nothing to show where to go.  After much searching, we finally found the trail again on the other side of the meadow area.  At that point, it began to follow what looked like an old road, but very rocky and overgrown.  You’d think that an old road would be easy to follow, but not this one–it kept disappearing, and so did any indication of trail.  We hunted endlessly for some indication of where to go.  Finally Fixit said, “Forget this trying to find the trail HERE.  Let’s just bushwhack to where we know we will at least cross the trail.”

The bushwhack involved going straight up a very steep mountainside, through the forest (with all the usual blowdowns to deal with).  Sometimes it was so steep that I had to use my hands to help in the climb.  But to our great delight, up top, we found TRAIL!  This we followed for awhile, enjoying the fact that we had trail to walk on, but then…without realizing it, we missed a crucial turn.  We were on what was obviously well-used trail, heading straight ahead, but the CDT made a right turn into a meadow.  There was no signpost at the turn, no cairns, no nothing to let us know we should go there.  So we just kept walking obliviously along.

The trail we were on (not the CDT, but we didn’t know it) led us down, way down the mountain, then it too disappeared.  I sat down with the maps, and Fixit with Guthook, to make a plan.  I figured it out–“Oh no!  This is not the CDT!   This is the Bill Creek Trail!”  Fixit confirmed that with Guthook.  It was very depressing to have to climb all the way back up that mountain, and then we had to find the CDT.  We looked and looked.  I was studying the maps very closely, and started to think…”Maybe on the other side of that meadow?”  I walked over to have a look, and hooray!   There was the trail!

We were very tired at this point–we’d spent so much time and energy trailhunting.  But knowing we were back on track–at least for now–was really encouraging.  The CDT at this point headed steeply down a canyon, and at 7 pm, the only flattish spot we could find was right by the trail itself.  We were setting up camp when one of the other CDT thruhikers came by, and asked if we’d seen Buttercup (one of the guys who was with Allgood).  No, we hadn’t.  Hope they find each other!

I figured out our miles for today and found we only did 11 CDT miles for all this time and work.  If only we’d been able to just hike along a trail–we would have gotten WAY more miles done!   I figure we must have lost more than half a day just playing “hide ‘n seek trail.”  But the one bonus today:  we got to see more moose!