Somehow after taking 6 zero days I make it back to the trail. I take 8 hitches from Missoula back to Tendoy, ID where I get back on trail.

1. The retired state trooper

2. The guy in a $500 4runner

3. The tatted up guy in a gmc dually who told me we were all crazy

4. A woman working on the Kevin Costener film in the area

5. The guy in a raptor (“I had to get the 2011 so I could get the badass V8!”) who cleans up meth labs for a living

6. The kid in a white mustang convertible (“you came from Mexico???”)

This gets me just outside of Salmon, ID. I’m 18 miles from Tendoy, this should be pretty easy… Noooooope. I guess hitching is illegal in Idaho… Couple that with a pretty conservative population and no one’s gonna stop for me. I sit there for 3 hours, watching my hiking daylight slip away.

By far the longest I’ve ever had to wait, by at least 1.5 hours. Getting impatient, I put a $20 under my thumb. I get a ride in 20 minutes:

7. The guy prepping for the civil war who tells me to buy a gun here and bring it back to California so I’m ready

8. The guy who lives up the drainage on the way back to the CDT who cuts my 13 mile dirt road walk down to 8 miles

At last, I’m back on trail. Somehow exhausted from hitching, I find this lean-to and crash for the night.

Whew.

And I got new shoes!!

Trail quickly turns back into alpine on the way up to Chief Joseph pass.

Also, I got stung by a wasp.. Which doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. But I guess this happens. It’d be nice to be able to use my hand while traversing this range.

My lovely new fiancé thought this was absolutely hilarious. Lol.

I’m starting to see pretty smoky skies from the fires up by Missoula.

My buddy,  Mr. Holmes and fam give me some incredible hospitality and probably put 5 pounds on me.

I have mellow trail coming out of Chief Joseph pass… Unaware of what is to come in the next couple days.

I don’t see a single person today, rare even on the cdt given I covered 35 miles.

There are fires in the area but I have clear skies when I go to sleep. Around midnight I wake up to a dry wind howling up the drainage I’m camped in. I poke out if my tarp, there’s ash falling from the sky. And… It looks like this:

The orange light is getting brighter by the minute… Okay time to GO. I jump up, put my shoes on, throw the essentials in my pack and get ready to book it. I have no idea how close this is.

But the next suddenly the wind stops… And it starts to rain a little. Eventually the orange dies down. I go back to sleep with my shoes. I don’t sleep… Until 3 am when it’s completely clear again.

I find out 2 days later that this one started after I left the trailhead and I’m in a fire closure area. My camp was in a different drainage about 4-5 miles away from the perimeter… Was pretty safe there.

The smoke is constant and I’ve got a ton of climbing. 14,000 feet in two days.

For the second day in a row I don’t see a single person, just a bunch of elk. I kept my sanity and didn’t start talking to myself.

If you’re ever in Anaconda, Montana, the hofbrau has a brisket sandwich with bacon and cheddar.

OH look it’s me. Hair combed to start hitching!

It’s September 1st. 3 years ago today I finished the PCT… Starting to think about next adventures… Caitlin and I already have a long list. It’s gonna be good 🙂

 

andrew batjiaka

Caitlin swooped into Montana for a few days to catch that solar eclipse thing with me. Butte > Norris > Polaris > Darby.

We battled a bit of traffic, found some random dirt road, climbed up to a ridge (which we’d later find out was DoE property), and waited… The temperature dropped, the wind picked up, and we watched a sunset as the sun hovered high in the sky.

And then, right as the sky became completely dark, I asked her to marry me. She said yes. 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

I carried the ring for 2000 miles. Always packing it first thing into my pack in the mornings. We drank a celebratory beer as the moon was still partially eclipsing the sun, feeling at peace, and excited. Total eclipse of the heart stuck in our heads as the radio DJs couldn’t stop talking about it.

Celebratory dinner, Montana style.

We are so happy 🙂