SUMMARY:  Well, instead of a really nice “nero” day in Elliston, with soft bed, showers, laundry, and lots to eat, we ended up with a 5-hour “pit stop”, because the motel was full of bow hunters! Can’t complain too much, though—a bow hunter gave us a ride down to Elliston. He told us he has a 10-month old son, and he puts the kid in a backpack and takes him out hunting. “Start ’em young, that’s the way to go,” he said. We agree!

So we got our box, ate breakfast, sorted food, repacked our packs, ate lunch at the “Lawdog Saloon” and hitched a ride back to the trail. The weather is cloudy, windy, and chilly. The scenery—gorgeous! Rolling grassy hills, forests. Still pretty smoky, though. The trail was hard to follow several times—Garmin was a big help.

DETAILS:  Last night we could hear cars going by on the highway–yawn–and we could hear train whistles–NICE!  Apparently there is a railroad going through Elliston.  And since there was no need to do a bunch of miles, we stayed in our sleeping bags till it was completely light outside, ate a bit of our leftover food (breakfast pastries) and headed out.  It didn’t take long before we were at a “vista point” just off the highway.  And we lucked out–there were some pipeline worker trucks there, and one of them offered us a ride to town.  Great!!

So I climbed into the back seat of his pickup and sat there next to…his awesome compound hunting bow, arrows and other gear. Turns out that bowhunting season just started, and he is ready!  He told us that when he goes hunting, he puts his 10-month-old son in a backpack and takes him along.  “Start ’em young!” he said, and we agreed!  We were carrying our kids in backpacks on hikes when they were that age, too.  (Only we weren’t hunting–never got into that).

We reached Elliston at 7:45, but nothing was open till 8:00, so we wandered around looking at things.  Yes indeed, the railroad DOES run right through town–what there is of it.  There’s the post office, a little store, a restaurant and a motel, on one side of the tracks, and on the other side are some houses and a church.  That’s about it.  Elliston isn’t very big.

As soon as the post office opened, we got our box, then we went to the store (which had also just opened) and I wandered around trying to find stuff we could eat for breakfast, because the restaurant is only open for lunch and dinner.  We sat in the sun on a bench in front of the store to eat, then off to the motel to see about getting a room.  But oh no! They were all full up with bowhunters–not a vacancy to be had.  Megabummer.  Fixit and I are filthy dirty and really, really tired.  We’d been looking forward to getting clean and resting on a comfortable bed.  The motel owner said we could camp out back if we wanted.  Should we give up and hitch a ride east to Helena?  In the end we decided “No, we’ll just push on.”

I noticed that there was some activity in the restaurant, “Lawdog Saloon”, so I went in and asked if it would be OK for us to come in and use one of their tables to sort our food and reload our packs, even though they weren’t open yet.  It would be a lot easier there than outside on the grass.  They said “No problem”.  Whew, good thing– there was a LOT of food to sort through and divide between our packs–six days’ worth.  AND, there’s not much water on the trail from this point, either, so we had to load up with a lot of water.  When I finished loading my pack, it was so heavy I could barely lift it.

Once the Lawdog officially opened just before noon, Fixit got the “Bounty Hunter Burger” (huge!) and I got a “Law Dog”–a very large sausage smothered with french fries and all kinds of stuff.  I could not finish it!  Wow, it was good, but I just could not manage another bite.  Fixit ate the rest of it for me.  We had a fun time talking to the waitress and the other customers, because since it was a bar, we were all sort of facing each other and could easily carry on a conversation.

We had no problem hitching a ride back to MacDonald Pass, and just before 1 pm, we were back on the trail.  It was cloudy, and there was a very cold wind blowing.  The Elliston folks said there’s a snowstorm on the way for this weekend.  We’ll see!  The trail at first was a dirt road going up to some radar towers, and after that it varied from faint and hard to follow (blowdowns, too) to a “road” that had been all deliberately plowed up and messed up so that no vehicle could use it.  We’ve been running into this sort of thing more and more–looks like the official government policy now is to do everything they can to keep people OUT of the backcountry.  Anyway, the route was hard to follow in many places, so the Garmin was a big help once again.

Scenery-wise, it was awesome!  We had gorgeous views of rolling hills with trees, and glimpses of the railroad.  The trains actually run UNDER the CDT, through a tunnel!  We found a place to camp, and a gorgeous sunset with a few mooing cows finished our day….we thought.  But then some guys went by on the dirt road and stopped not too far away from us, where they proceeded to hoot ‘n holler and shoot off guns.  Oh great.  We lay as flat to the ground as possible and hoped that no stray bullets came our way.  Finally they quieted down.  I hope they all sleep in really late tomorrow so we can get past them!