So I guess from the looks of this site, I’m still sitting in East Glacier, waiting for a weather window to hit the last 100 miles or so to the border. I’m uh… really happy that’s not the case:

In reality, I just don’t know how to properly conclude the CDT. It had everything I was looking for.

In East Glacier, I check the weather obsessively to see what the next 5 days entails. I have the best weather window imaginable. Slight snow showers followed by 4 days of clear blue skies. Does it get any better than this? It’s also September so the park is nearly empty.

I climb over the first pass into Glacier and get my first glimpse of what the next 5 days are going to be like. This place is magnificent.

My permit itinerary has me doing relatively small days. It’s only 11 miles from East Glacier to Two Medicine where I’ll camp for the night.

I’m not used to finishing early, so I go to the beach and read my book. I get distracted easily.

The next morning, I see three more bears, snackin’. They’re the most active this time of year – about 20 hours a day, trying to get in those last calories before winter finally sets in. This brings my CDT count to 13 black bears, and 3 grizzlies – always alone!

I’m up on top of Pitamakan pass, the remaining passes on the entire CDT are in the single digits. I’m supposed to sit and savor. Breaking from my usual thunderstorm evasive action.

The weather rolls in and the temperature drops for Triple Divide pass. It’s cold out – these are winter storms, not the thunder monsoons that I’m used to on this trail.

On the other side of a drainage, I see two elk far off in the distance. They bugle for about an hour as I descend back below tree line – where the wind drops, the temperature picks up again, and the risk of surprising a griz comes back on my mind.

I won’t see any more bears on this trip though. My next day is only 13.9 miles. I sleep in as best I can and cruise next to glacial lakes in a state of absolute bliss. It’s easy to zone out and let the miles flow by. 

I have the same permit itinerary as my buddy James. We hike alone each day as that’s what we’ve become accustomed to on the CDT, but we make camp together. I make my very first fire on the trail, after 142 days. It’s as if the trail is forcing me back to a more “normal” backpacking routine. No more pushing 35 mile days – time to stop at 2 pm, spend an hour collecting fire wood, an hour exploring creeks, two hours sitting by a fire, an hour cooking dinner.

The next morning, I climb quickly up to Piegan pass. I am continuously in awe of the backcountry wilderness in the United States, and this is really some of the best. This is also truly the greatest weather I’ve had on the entire trip. Cold mornings, sunny and low 70s during the day. 

It’s as if the entire trail was preparing me for this. So many days of rain, thunderstorms, snow, looming clouds, only to be rewarded by the CDT in my last week. I wouldn’t be able to fully appreciate this if I hadn’t been through typical CDT weather for so many days.

I drop down to Many Glacier and walk past the eerily empty lodge, closed for the season. I am so relieved I’m not here in peak tourist season. This park is too good to be experienced with crowds.

I camp at Poia Lake. My last night is just like any other night on the trail – drop into my usual routine of shelter -> dinner -> sleeping bag. Except this one is just a bit different, a tinge sadness mixed with excitement. I can’t really describe it.

Looking back at the mountains I’ve just traversed, I walk through groves of aspens and up an over one final 500ft climb.

There’s a trail crew at the trailhead. I must have a look of exultation as someone quickly asks me, “Did you just finish the CDT?” Or maybe I just look like a dirty, exhausted thru hiker who’s been on trail for 5 months. I say, “yeah…” I sense their own excitement and they start asking me questions –“how was it??” and I’m supposed to have like a sentence that sums it all up in a tiny package but I can’t really come up with anything until I muster out a “that was… hard”. I move on and cross into Canada. 

Getting to Canada is the goal of this thing, the reason why I connected a continuous line of footsteps from Mexico to Canada, for if I’d skipped ahead for whatever reason it wouldn’t feel complete. But I have that same bittersweet feeling I had when I finished the PCT.

It’s fitting that the border monument of the CDT is covered in cow shit. In the past 5 months I’ve seen more cows that humans. Often times they’d be my only companions out there.

James and I get a pretty easy hitch back into East Glacier wherein our driver downs 3 road sodas. We hit the bar for celebratory drinks.

And the day I started:

I was sitting at the Canadian border wondering how that all went by so fast. This was the best summer of my life. I was tested constantly – physically and mentally. I can finally reminisce fondly of my most painful injuries on trail. They’re just a blip and an indicator of how hard this trail was.

I hardly remember now how beat up I would get on a daily basis in Colorado. On the day coming into Wolf Creek pass, I decided I wanted to do 28 miles over the snow. I hyper-extended my knee sliding down a ravine and spent the next 3 days googling torn acl symptoms.

I cut open my ankles over and over and over again bushwacking offtrail in the snow coming into Lake city. My ankles swelled up so bad I couldn’t walk for 2 days.

After some 1800 miles on trail, I sprained my ankle on the top of Parkview mountain (12,300′), worse than I’ve ever sprained it on any trail. I was completely alone, 40 miles from town.(Am I going crazy? No, but wait… am I? No… I think.)

I never saw triple degree heat. I probably got hypothermia for the first time — my mind was so distracted that I failed to notice the wet liner of my shorts cutting against my legs for 18 miles. I peeled them off to shower and noticed my thighs were bleeding.

I ran when I needed to make more miles.  I had 5 days over 40 miles, and 33 in the 30s. My average day was 24.5 miles, but 48% of the hike was done on 30+ mile days. I hiked bigger days on the CDT, but took a lot of zeroes, an experience that seemed to be common this year. At first, to wait for snow to melt in the San Juans, then taking them to recover as Colorado beat the shit out of me. I was able to cruise through Wyoming. In Montana I took a lot of fun zeroes, (I mean, I got engaged!!!) but long stretches of days off also interrupts my flow on the trail. It was difficult to go straight back to my rhythm of huge days after taking multiple days off in a row.

(The Great Divide Basin)

I hiked the CDT 95% alone, completely alone. I began to embrace hiking alone, and eventually preferring it. I attained a sense of comfort in which I was able to traverse 13k passes with relative ease – a feeling that is difficult to describe.

When things got rough, I didn’t always have camaraderie to lean on. I liked hiking alone, and I began to crave it, hiking with others became a distraction between me and the wilderness. But this also meant that when I was facing unknown conditions, I was left to myself to deal with it.

So just like that – I’m on amtrak headed home – watching old railfans clutching bags of rold golds in awe of the empire builder route and swirling ideas of future trips in my head planting them as seeds in the back of my brain…

I cannot wait.

andrew batjiaka