The following couple of posts will be more of a summary, combining multiple days in an effort to document some spontaneous section hikes over the 2024 summer. I spent about a week trying to figure out what to do after the GDT, then making my way back onto a trail. Roughly, my plan was to complete some alternate stretches along the CDT, which I missed in favor of sticking to the main route during my 2019 thru-hike. My strategy pretty much was to wing-it and see what happened.
The first goal was getting back to the US. My post on the GDT FB page got the attention of an incredibly kind lady, Lisa, who offered to drive us from Calgary to East Glacier…a 3 hour one-way trip! It turns out, she’d done the same trip just a month before when she drove her daughter and son-in-law to the border to begin their CDT thru-hike, so she was familiar with hikers and such spontaneous journeys. Also, hiker moms make for the most amazing Trail Angels. I couldn’t thank Lisa and her husband Kay enough for the help they gave us this day! It was the spark that got this entire thing moving. Otherwise I might have just given up and taken a flight back to Miami.
Notice I said “us” because I managed to recruit Strider for this crazy journey. The last time I’d seen him was at Boulton Creek but he was still in the area, also trying to come up with a plan after the fires shut down half the GDT. I tried to convince Alex to join us as well, but he decided to remain in Canada awhile longer. Lisa picked me up at the airport, grabbed Strider from nearby, then made the long drive to East Glacier. We easily made it through the border crossing and were hanging out with a few CDT hikers by the afternoon. It was so great to be back at Luna’s Looking Glass Basecamp, an infamous hiker hostel and hangout that I’d become acquainted with almost exactly 2 years prior while hiking the PNT. To my great surprise, I even bumped into a PNT alumni…Costanza! I also bumped into him the year before (2023) in northern CA, while we were both hiking the PCT in different directions. How amazing to run into him 3 years in a row! He was back to hike the Montana Trail…the first one to attempt this new route in fact! Of course I tried to sway him to our fly-by-night plans, but he wisely stuck to his original plans.
Strider and I briefly considered some hikes in Glacier NP, but we’d both recently hiked through the park, so we focused instead on hitching further south. We tried for part of the next day to score a ride all the way to Yellowstone, but it was too much of a long-shot. Still, luck was incredibly on our side, as Luna’s husband was driving all the way to Bozeman the next day, Sunday the 28th. So we stayed a second night and had a fun time riding with Will. He dropped us off at the Bozeman Walmart, where we were able to take a bus to Big Sky. Incredibly, we ran into a group of 7 CDT hikers doing a resupply and also riding the bus. I’d previously met one of them, Nanaman, at FT and AT Trail days. Strider and I then caught a few more hitches that day to make our way to the outskirts of Yellowstone NP.
Teton Crest Trail, 44 Miles, July 30th-Aug 1st
Day 1, July 30th, Jenny Lake to Lower Paintbrush, 7 miles. We contemplated beginning the Teton/Gros Ventre CDT alternate from Yellowstone, then decided to hitch into Teton NP, so we could get permits to do just the best parts of the Teton Crest Trail. Eventually we made it to the Jenny Lake Visitor’s Center and were able to score backcountry permits for that same day! We departed around 2 pm and it felt so great to be back on a trail, almost exactly 1 week after I left the GDT. Unfortunately the wildfire smoke followed us all the way from Canada, so our views of the majestic Teton Skyline were somewhat obscured as we set off. Then after only 30 minutes, it started to rain, so I had to put my phone away.
We left Jenny and String Lakes to climb into Paintbrush Canyon. I shortly got distracted by all the ripening huckleberries, where another backpacker warned us of a bear sighting in half a mile. Sure enough, the bear was still in the vicinity, eagerly consuming berries as well. Strider had gotten ahead of me while I was eating berries, thus got some awesome shots of the bear in-between us.
1. Bear meets a Twig on trail
2. Bear contemplates if a Twig is edible but decides to go back to eating huckleberries… good choice!
Conclusion: 1 out of 1 bears prefer eating huckleberries over Twigs.
Aside from the harmless bear encounter (he was very used to seeing backpackers and mostly concerned with gorging on berries), the day was pretty quiet and uneventful. We found a pretty epic campsite on the side of a hill, which had great views down the canyon and back to the lakes and valley.
Day 2, July 31st, Lower Paintbrush to Alaska Basin, 1 mile south of sunset lake 5800 up and 4200 down, 17 miles. This was the most scenic day of the hike, with incredible views of the 3 Teton peaks throughout, plus marmots, wildflowers, waterfalls and glaciers! Miraculously, all the smoke that had obstructed our views the day before was completely gone. We hiked over a pass that had a little snow left in sections, met tons of other backpackers and day hikers, and had lunch at Lake Solitude…along with tons of people. We spent the afternoon walking through the valley on the backside (west) of the Teton peaks. Strider checked out a side trail while I spent some extra time near Schoolroom Glacier, cooking dinner and taking in the incredible views. In searching for a campsite, I decided to go past Sunset Lake since there were so many people already camped there. Strider eventually found me after dark and camped nearby.
Day 3, August 1st, AK basin to Phillips canyon trailhead, 20 miles. While packing up in the morning, we met Alan, a CDT hiker that would become a good friend in the days and weeks to come. The 3 of us hiked together most of the day, in and out of the Jedediah Smith Wilderness. Most TCT hikers do some form of a loop either down Death Canyon or Granite Canyon to return to Jenny Lake and/or Teton Village, but we continued south all the way to Phillips Canyon, which would brought us to the outskirts of Wilson and Jackson Hole. We also met Tigger, a former CDT hiker that was now doing some section hikes and helping other hikers, since he had wheels. Alan walked all the way into town this day, eager to get some calories, while Strider and I pulled up short so we could camp for free in the forest. We’d all heard of how expensive Jackson Hole was, so we savored another night of living among the trees. Also, Strider and I both had a ton of food leftover from resupplies that had been intended to get us through 4 days of the GDT.
Next, into Jackson Hole and through the Gros Ventre…