On the stolen land of the Blackfeet, Ktunaxa, Salish, Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla peoples.

This post is about my 2022 thru attempt. I’m not currently thru-hiking and will not be in the 2024 season. I’ll announce concrete plans when I have them.

A Chill Day in the Bob

The next day, by current standards, was pretty uneventful. I met back up with the CDT after a flat and beautiful morning. After that, the day involved a 2,000ft+ ascent. I had a much easier time with it than with most of the other ascents I’d done, which meant my trail legs were coming in. I camped with a group of hikers who were going into Augusta from Benchmark (Augusta is a trail town and Benchmark is the bailout point between the Bob Marshall and the Scapegoat Wilderness) the day after next in the morning. It was 27 miles to Benchmark and my longest day to that point had been somewhere around 17 miles. The group was planning on doing 24 miles, camping, and then hiking out early. I was not confident I was capable of a 24, but I figured I’d give it a go.

25.2 Miles, and What is that Floating Orb?

We slept by an alpine lake and it was gorgeous. I woke up early, packed up, and set off on my 25ish mile attempt. I have literally no notes for this day, but I’ll tell you what I remember. I hiked off alone, and the trail rounded a bend that revealed the Chinese Wall in all its glory ahead of me. The Chinese Wall is an escarpment and is one of the features of the CDT that I’d been looking forward to since I decided to hike. It did not disappoint. I walked along it alone, save for the occasional marmot, and I was floored by its beauty.

After I finished the section with the wall, I did a smaller ascent and then started dropping down into a valley, where Benchmark is located. The views were unreal the whole way, and I started to run into weekend backpackers and horseback riders, which was a little bit of a morale boost. I loved the Chinese Wall but was also very done with Mr. Bob Marshall and his charades. I just wanted to take a shower and eat a bunless cheeseburger (I am gluten intolerant and hoping for gluten free buns in small town America is just not realistic) and sleep literally anywhere that wasn’t the woods. I was really struggling to connect with nature and with my hike, and the disconnect scared me.

The day went on forever and I hiked as fast as I could, trying to get to the area where the others had said they were going to camp. I cruised for a long time, and felt disconnected for most of it. I was just walking. The beauty should’ve floored me and I felt nothing at all. Still, I kept going.

I made it around 23 miles before entering another burn scar. I was crossing my fingers I would be able to find a place to camp, because the sun had started to go down and I didn’t want to hike alone in grizz country at night. Unfortunately, most of the dead trees were still standing, which made camping a huge hazard. I kept going as some orb started rising in the sky in front of me. I was confused, it looked like the sun, but I’d thought I’d watched the sun set. Is it morning already? Did I hike through the night and black it out? Am I hallucinating? I was delirious by that point, and anything was possible. I just kept looking for a place to put my tent.

Eventually it rose enough that I figured it out. Ohhhhhhh, that’s the moon. Yes. I thought the moon was the sun for a solid 20 minutes. I was that out of it, pumped full of endorphins by a body pushed beyond its limit and then some. I’d been walking for like 16 hours. I was dead and still walking.

It got dark. I pulled out my headlamp in defeat, made so much noise, and kept walking, hoping to not get mauled by a bear, which was really always the hope. Solo night hiking is a lot scarier when the things that go bump probably aren’t cows, but I wasn’t about to put my tent under a dead tree. Eventually I found a place to sleep that was kind of sketchy, but not nearly as sketchy as anywhere else. I didn’t love the look of the pines I was under, but they were at least alive, and there was nothing dead and standing within range. It was going to have to be good enough, given the circumstances. I pitched my tent and went to bed sometime after eleven.

The next morning I woke up around 4:30am and texted the shuttle driver with my inReach, asking to join the group going out that morning. Exhausted and sore, but not as sore as I’d expected, I packed up camp and hiked the remaining couple of miles to Benchmark. There, I ran into the group of hikers also waiting for the shuttle, chatting with them about the day. I’d done it.