Days 83 and 84 - Glacier Two Medicine

After a full day spent taking care of chores back home, writing my Yellowstone posts and dividing out my food supply into 500 calorie packs, I drove north to Glacier's Two Medicine area. I arrived around dinner time to light crowds, ideal sunny weather and awesome mountain peaks set around long and slender lakes.

The next morning, the ranger told me the path to Cobalt Lake and Two Medicine Pass were mostly clear, so I set out, first around the south side of the lake to a peaceful lakeside clearing, then through an ancient-feeling forest, to two tumbling waterfalls, through a meadow, then up a steep trail along a stream to Cobalt Lake.

I ran into a nice guy named Matt, originally from Boston but on a grad-school rotation in nearby Bozeman. Matt had set up his tent on the side of a snow bank overlooking the lake- a lovey camp. After chatting for a bit, I continued up the snowy but easily passable trail to the ridge of Two Medicine Pass. The wind picked up dramatically once I crested the ridge, keeping a steady 40 mph pace and gusting up to 60 mph. My heart rate picked up as well: it felt like hiking in a hurricane, along a ridgeline with huge mountain views in all directions, it was awesome and scary! The ridge was very wide so I was never at risk of being blown off, but still I took a few photos and came back down.

I ran into Matt on the return trip home and learned that his tent poles had snapped during a gust of wind-- powerful winds today. I planned to attempt a harder and snowier Dawson Pass route tomorrow and hoped the wind would settle down.

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Day 161 - JMT Purple Lake and Tully Hole

We got our first glimpse of smoke far across the valley as we climbed higher. Up on a ridge after a morning climb, we followed a side trail to an open viewpoint beyond the trees. Selfie:) The smoke, while visible, seemed to give the mountains a blue glow-- like a highlighter to a sketch. You could still see the edges of the mountain ridges, the story of their creation. We could hike in this. But the smoke looked worse farther south. Or it was getting worse as time rolled incessantly forward. On day two we had ran into a northbound hiker we nicknamed Speedy Steve. Speedy Steve had hiked 18 miles a day through eight consecutive smoke-filled days, including atleast three "very bad days" when he couldn't see the surrounding mountains, the sun glowed a haunting orange and ash accumulated overnight. On the way to Purple Lake we ran into three dirty, beat up, tired north-bound hikers with a similar story. They had to spend one night in an emergency hut at Muir Pass to avoid the...

Day 41 - Escalante Coyote Gulch

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