Continental Divide Trail – Day 72
August 3, 2023
Miles Today/ Total: 25.2 / 1,212.8
It started raining about an 9:30 last night and I closed up my tent and went back to sleep. It was still raining at 12:45 when I woke up again. When I woke up this morning everything was pretty wet and I had to wipe the tent dry before packing.
I had a visitor last night. A rodent chewed a hole in my tent floor and into my lunch food bag. It didn’t look like he got to anything, but I had to patch the hole in the tent this morning.
Finally making it to the trail it followed trout creek up the valley. About 1/2 mile from camp I saw a moose and her calf eating breakfast along the creek. The walked off as I walked past them.
The forest at the end of the valley had been burnt in the Troublesome fire of 2020. The area was still pretty devastated with lots of stands by and fallen burnt trees. The underbrush hasn’t grown back yet and the whole area looked pretty eerie.
The trail climbed up to the Continental Divide and followed the divide on the ridge line for quite some time. It passed through Willow Creek Pass amid some cool rock formations and started an ascent up to Parkview Mountain. This was a long ascent and I reached the top and checked out the communication hut at the top.
The clouds had moved in as I was climbing up and I had a difficult time finding the trail down. Finally finding it I descended downward and dropped out below the clouds and could see the valleys again.
The trail continued to follow the Continental Divide on the ridge line. No thunder or lightning today, but the wind was bitter cold and the rain / hail came in several waves.
As I neared Troublesome Pass I came across a group of youths working on a trail maintenance crew. They were cutting blowdowns off the trail. I thanked them for their work and continued on.
The trail climbed up once again to the ridge line and the rain/ hail pelted down two more times in the afternoon. I reached a nice campsite nestled in some pine trees and set up camp for the night.
As I was cooking dinner it began to rain again and I moved everything into the tent. I finished the evening in the tent as the rain came and went in several waves.
