Alta Backcountry

hike

  • Montana is not all burning…walking the CDT to Helena

    If the news cast an accurate portrayal of the situation in Montana in autumn 2017, one might think we’d be unable to continue – if not already charred to death – as a result of forest fires everywhere. Images of… Continue reading

  • Ten Things

    Sometimes you have to find the things that were good, rather than dwell on the things that were not. This section, as we poured over maps of the area in Darby, was looking bleak. Smoke filled the sky, and every… Continue reading

    Ten Things

  • CDT Leadore to Darby: Steep Ridges and the Burning Bitterroots 

    The long and serpentine path thru southern Montana has taken us to the farthest west section of the entire Continental Divide in the United States. We are in Darby, Montana, deep in the Bitterroot Mountains. In a few days it… Continue reading

  • CDT Pain Cave, Eclipses and Wolves

    As the long summer turns to the dog days of August, the trail follows suit. After the wild splendor of the lush Wind River mountains and the sublime beauty of Yellowstone, we’ve entered terrain that is a little less spectacular… Continue reading

  • Bumping Between Borders

    After a double zero in Yellowstone, the legs feel much more recovered, and my headspace has improved too. It has been a lot of fun to walk around the Old Faithful area to look at all the geysers and hot… Continue reading

    Bumping Between Borders

  • North to Yellowstone National Park

    Foggy morning in Yellowstone. North. The word has power. It invokes images. Wild images of deep pine woods, dancing aurora night skies, wolves sliding through the shadows, fog rising off lakes, owls hooting calls to one another through the night.… Continue reading

  • Out of the Winds

    Sometimes, even after a full zero, it’s still tough. The infected blister I got in the Red Desert didn’t heal (shockingly) in one day. But options are low, and mostly the option is forward, northward, ever onwards. So despite green… Continue reading

  • CDT Journal: Into The Winds

    Dense fog came rolling through the spires as we approached the top of the pass. Thick clouds, heavy with moisture, banked on top of each other, so close I could pull their damp woolen threads down around me. After a… Continue reading

  • CDT Journal: Crossing the Great American Desert

    Let me tell you what walking 1,000 miles does to you. You have plenty of time to think; you have plenty of time to ask yourself why you are doing what you are doing. You have plenty of tests of… Continue reading