{"id":610,"date":"2016-08-23T04:24:30","date_gmt":"2016-08-23T04:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/?p=610"},"modified":"2017-06-21T14:44:20","modified_gmt":"2017-06-21T14:44:20","slug":"onto-the-nez-perce-trail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/2016\/08\/23\/onto-the-nez-perce-trail\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday, August 23 Onto the Nez Perce Trail"},"content":{"rendered":"

SUMMARY:\u00a0 <\/strong>The Sula County Store and Resort has been a great place to stay\u2014very friendly and comfortable. Wish we could have stayed longer! But at 12:30pm we hitched a ride in the back of a pickup truck (it’s legal to do that here in Montana!) and we were back to the CDT in the “cross country zone” of the Lost Trail Pass Ski resort.<\/p>\n

Wow, what a mish-mash of trails\u2014but whew, the CDT was well-marked. Part of the time we were on the Nez Perce Historic Trail\u2014so sad. It’s the path the Nez Perce followed when they were trying to get to Canada, and it was here (right by the CDT) that the U.S. army troops pulled off a surprise attack. It was sad to be walking a trail with such a grim history.<\/p>\n

DETAILS:\u00a0 <\/strong>We had less than 24 hours at the Sula Resort, but it was a great time anyway.\u00a0 The people here are very hiker-friendly and very helpful.\u00a0 The little restaurant there is really good, and we decided we’d stay long enough to get both breakfast AND lunch before hitching back to the trail.<\/p>\n

This morning it was COLD.\u00a0 We were wearing our down jackets, just to walk over to the restaurant.\u00a0 While we were eating, three “frozen” bike riders arrived.\u00a0 They are riding across the USA, and had stopped in not just for breakfast, but to thaw out.\u00a0 What a morning to be out whizzing along on a bike–brrrrr!\u00a0 And all they were wearing was biker shorts and thin biker jackets.\u00a0 I don’t know how they do it.<\/p>\n

After breakfast I sorted through our food.\u00a0 We’d figured on 3 1\/2 days hiking to Anaconda, but to be on the safe side, I added another half day, so now we have 4 days worth of food, and I hope that will be enough.\u00a0 We are heading into the Pintler mountains, and have heard they are beautiful but lots of big ups and downs.\u00a0 I was also trying hard to drink as much water as I can–I realized I’m pretty dehydrated.\u00a0 While doing that, I was also skimming through a wonderful book I found in the laundry room at the resort.\u00a0 It’s called “I Tried Till I Almost Died”, and it’s by a lady who was quite a “workaholic for God” till she realized that God is WAY more interested in having a close relationship with us than He is in us running around “doing stuff for Him.”\u00a0 It was really good.\u00a0 I also made a bunch more little cards for Fixit to give out, with our website URL.<\/p>\n

While we were eating lunch, I mentioned that we would be trying to hitch back to the trail as soon as we were done, and the store lady said it really helps if you make sure to look like a CDT hiker (the key thing is your trek poles!!) and not like a homeless bum.\u00a0 But as it turned out,\u00a0 I was able to yogi a ride from a nice young couple in the parking lot in front of the store.\u00a0 I don’t mind one bit walking up to perfect strangers to ask for a ride!\u00a0 Their vehicle was a small pickup truck, so Fixit and I rode in the back (perfectly legal in Montana!!).<\/p>\n

As we were walking back up to the CDT from the highway, we met one of the Warrior hikers!!\u00a0 He’s headed for the Hot Springs resort, which is closer to the trail than Sula.\u00a0 We talked to him a little bit (I admired his official Warrior Hiker shirt) but I felt very sorry for him–whatever horror he has had to go through, he still seems to be hurting, even after walking all the way here from Crazy Cook.\u00a0 I hope he finds peace somehow.<\/p>\n

Up at Chief Joseph Pass, we met a lady who was waiting to pick up “a CDT hiker in a blue shirt”.\u00a0\u00a0 Haven’t seen the guy at all, and it confirmed that we must be still in a “hiker bubble.”\u00a0 Then we were off into the Lost Trail Pass cross-country ski area.\u00a0 What a trail maze!!\u00a0 The signs were up high on trees, and hooray–the CDT route was clearly indicated.\u00a0 We found it amusing that if a tree with a CDT “sticker” on it fell down or was cut down, they saved the section of trunk with the sticker on it and set it up along the trail like a post.<\/p>\n

Eventually we reached the Gibbons Pass area, where the CDT joins with the Nez Perce Historic Trail.\u00a0 The Nez Perce were fleeing to Canada, in order to avoid a forcible relocation imposed on them by the U.S. government.\u00a0 You would think that officials would say, “OK, fine, go to Canada then” and let them go, but no, army troops were sent in pursuit.\u00a0 The Nez Perce were very clever about eluding the troops for a long time, but here is where their escape attempt ended.\u00a0 The army launched a surprise attack, and it was all over.\u00a0 So sad.\u00a0 And here we were, in 2016, walking right over the ground where all that happened.<\/p>\n

Lewis and Clark came through here as well, and in their journals they commented on how pathetic the forest was “because of all the fires.”\u00a0 Well, nothing has changed in that regard!\u00a0\u00a0 If L & C came through here now, they would say the same thing again.\u00a0 We were hiking through miles of forest fire zone and almost despaired of finding a place to camp among the acres of fallen, dead, burned trees.\u00a0 Finally we found a spot where if we moved a small log, there would be just room enough to set up our tent.<\/p>\n

Checking the maps for tomorrow, though, I said, “Oh no!\u00a0 There isn’t anymore water for a long way.\u00a0 We should have brought more water from Sula.\u00a0 We’ll have to ration tomorrow.”\u00a0 Sigh.\u00a0 But Anaconda, here we come!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SUMMARY:\u00a0 The Sula County Store and Resort has been a great place to stay\u2014very friendly and comfortable. Wish we could have stayed longer! But at 12:30pm we hitched a ride in the back of a pickup truck (it’s legal to do that here in Montana!) and we were back to the CDT in the “cross […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-montana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610","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=610"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1030,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions\/1030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}