{"id":584,"date":"2016-08-10T04:40:28","date_gmt":"2016-08-10T04:40:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/?p=584"},"modified":"2017-06-06T14:46:08","modified_gmt":"2017-06-06T14:46:08","slug":"montanaho","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/2016\/08\/10\/montanaho\/","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday, August 10 Montanaho!"},"content":{"rendered":"

SUMMARY:\u00a0 <\/strong>What fun! We’ve reached the part of the Divide here in the Centennial Mountains, where we are walking above timberline on a narrow ridge. If we walk the north side of the ridge, we’re in Montana\u2014if the south side, we’re in Idaho. So the hikers just say “Whatever! We’re hiking in Montanaho!”<\/p>\n

The views from the trail today were spectacular, and until after Aldous Lake, the trail itself was cared for and had signs. All that ended abruptly after the lake, and we were back to climbing over blowdowns and huffing up killer long steep uphills. But the forest here is green and pretty with lots of plants and even ponds. We’ve camped by one of those tonight.<\/p>\n

DETAILS:\u00a0 <\/strong>Brrr, it was 32 degrees this morning!\u00a0 We started hiking all bundled up, after pulling plant stickers\/seedheads off our gear.\u00a0 It’s that time of year–the plants are all going to seed.\u00a0 We moved right along and soon finished the big switchbacks that took us up to the top of the Divide, where a strong, cold wind was waiting for us.\u00a0 There were a lot of plants along the trail and overhanging the trail, which kept snagging on our trek poles, making for slower going.\u00a0 We ate breakfast in a sunny, protected spot near the edge of a big dropoff where there used to be an open pit mine.<\/p>\n

Back to the trail–the Divide is very narrow here, and the trail meanders a bit along the ridge, so sometimes we are in Montana and sometimes Idaho.\u00a0 Far below us are golden valleys with large lakes and few roads.\u00a0 There is not a sign of a ranch or a cow or anything–it’s just open and unoccupied.\u00a0 Up on the mountain, where there are forests, they are much greener than those in Wyoming or Colorado.\u00a0 There are very few dead trees.\u00a0 We spent the morning up high above timberline, among the wildflowers and grasses.<\/p>\n

Finally the trail dropped way down, back into forest again, to the trailhead camp for Aldous Lake.\u00a0 It was very nice, and\u00a0 had some brand new campsites with tables and bear boxes.\u00a0 After that came a 1 1\/4 mile climb up to the lake itself.\u00a0 We didn’t think much of it–it turned out to be basically a green, algae laden large pond.\u00a0 The trail up to the lake, though, was fine–blowdowns all cleared, nice trail and plenty of signs.\u00a0 But after the lake, all that changed.\u00a0 We were back to climbing over blowdowns, negotiating “trail” that was in dire need of some maintenance, and no signs or indications that we were on the CDT.<\/p>\n

Then came a very long and very steep “killer” uphill where our speed dropped to a crawl.\u00a0 We were really tired when we stopped at the top of it to eat some dinner and rest a bit.\u00a0 Then came MORE steep uphill, and we reached a forest fire zone with lots of blackened trees and blowdowns and messed up trail.\u00a0 It was so sad to see the burned forest, knowing how pretty it must have been before the fire.\u00a0 We passed a pond and finally stopped to camp near the next one.\u00a0 I had hoped for at least 25 miles today, but with the uphill slowdown, I don’t think we made that much.\u00a0 But we did OK, and hopefully we can make it into Lima tomorrow!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SUMMARY:\u00a0 What fun! We’ve reached the part of the Divide here in the Centennial Mountains, where we are walking above timberline on a narrow ridge. If we walk the north side of the ridge, we’re in Montana\u2014if the south side, we’re in Idaho. So the hikers just say “Whatever! We’re hiking in Montanaho!” The views […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-idaho","category-montana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":999,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584\/revisions\/999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}