Just got back to Texas after spending the week adventuring in Montana. I have some catching up to do reading everybody’s trip reports, but here is mine:
Saturday
Headed up the road towards dearborne with the peloton. The road miles flew by as I chatted with Dave and Adrien. As typically happens at any race, everybody started out too fast. I knew from experience that you can do some real damage in the first few hours of a long event by starting this way. In a familiar routine from road cycling, I tried to identify who had the fitness to start this fast and who was hanging on not taking care of themselves. After I caught myself not stopping to drop layers and feeling rushed every time I stopped to pee or take a picture, I realized I was one of the hangers-on and tried to justify staying with the group a bit longer to make the miles go faster. I compromised by making an effort to eat and drink more than I felt like and promised myself I would take a break after the group began to split up. Even still, I think I did damage that wouldn’t become evident until the following morning.
After Dave split off at whitetail creek, Tyler and I took a nice shoes-off break along the dearborne, then continued on together for the rest of the day. I was glad of the company as it made the miles go by more quickly. We frequently saw tracks of the teton crew in cascadias, but Adrien was a ghost. I swear his Innov-8’s rarely touched the ground, and I made a game of trying to find his tracks. For several hours I wondered if he had run ahead at the start and was hiding somewhere… Enjoyed the views over straight creek pass, and soldiered on thru the deadfall over elbow pass. Crossing the SF Sun was the only concerning river crossing, but ended up being knee deep and only a bit pushy. Made my goal for the day on a bench below Observation pass, 33 miles in the bag and feeling pretty good. I didn’t bother to pitch my tarp or hang a bear bag, just brewed up some soup and crashed out in my bivy. In retrospect, starting out too fast and not eating enough before bed were setting me up for failure the next day.
Sunday
Sunday was all about wasting time and trying to get back in front of the recovery/feeding/hydration curve. I woke up feeling foggy at 6 am, but didn’t have the layers to sit around making breakfast. I left Tyler to make breakfast in his huge puffy while I moved out over observation trying to get warm. As I had hoped, we had a good freeze overnight, with a nice walkable crust all the way to the pass. The trail disappeared shortly after snow line, and I observed the teton crew’s tracks wandering around trying to find it. I decided I was smarter than them and headed straight for the pass without so much as looking at the topo. After my brain finally woke up, I realized I was headed for the wrong pass, but that correcting my mistake would involve a lot of nasty sidehilling on frozen snow. Instead, I followed grizzly tracks over the other pass and walked the ridgeline back to observation. The view was almost worth the mistake, but I was annoyed at myself for making such an obvious error in judgement. As is usual, the headspace and balance are the first things to go when you haven’t been taking care of yourself, so I took this as a warning to slow down and eat more. I think the calorie debt from going too fast early on finally caught up to me, and it showed for the rest of the morning. I took a break to eat some breakfast and clear my head until Tyler came into view. Still feeling annoyed with myself and antisocial, I moved out before he caught up. The rest of the morning was uneventful except for some very fresh bear scat as the trail passed thru some thick regrowth. I heard a twig snap behind me and whirled around only to see Tyler.. We hiked together for a while longer until I decided to put on Danaher.
I was overeager to put on danaher and left Tyler as soon as the creek looked clear of wood. Too early, as the wood came back with a vengeance, and I probably wasted an hour+ climbing over and around what seemed like constant logjams. Unlike my navigational error over Observation, I think this was a fairly productive mistake. (1) As my first time in this sort of landscape, and with little wilderness packrafting experience, I had no feel for the creek based on reading a topo. This will come with experience, but now I see how low gradient and spruce result in winding s-turns and massive logjams. Lesson: I need more experience reading topo with boatability in mind. (2) The section of trail along upper Danaher was really muddy and torn up, and my legs were having none of it. Already annoyed with myself for making slow miles all morning, I followed the siren song of fast float miles instead of the beta I had (too much wood above basin creek). Lesson: make decisions based on fact (beta) instead of how I feel. (3) I also learned how to move more efficiently through the logjams and pick the right channels to minimize them. I stopped to reposition my pack on the bow with the straps out so that I could wear the boat on my back for portages. This configuration made the portages a lot easier as well. I did see tracks of the elusive Dave C portaging around several logjams, so he must have put on too early as well. This made me feel a little better about myself. I also resolved to spend the rest of the day getting myself back on track mentally and physically.
After two big mistakes for the morning, I was behind schedule, but enjoyed an awesome float down the south fork to the white river. I tried to use the easy float miles to get back on top of the fueling/recovery curve, and this slowed me down a bit but was highly beneficial. For instance,I was getting cold after a rainstorm around the white river confluence, so stopped to brew up some soup. I regretted stuffing my fleece in a dry bag at the bottom of my pack as layering up earlier would have kept me on the river, but the added calories and warmth were a good decision. It was an hour before dark when I arrived at little salmon, and I contemplated continuing on for a few hours, but decided that pushing now would undo all of my efforts of the afternoon. I pitched the tarp and crawled under my quilt with wet baselayers to try to warm up. Too cold to fall asleep, I got up and built a big fire and then waxed poetic as I sat out until 1 am drying gear and enjoying the stars. I thought about my relationship to wilderness, on why I was out there. I decided that wilderness is as much an emotional construct as a spatial one. Sitting around the fire, I felt so small in relation to this big wilderness and was satisfied. I fell asleep to the patter of rain on my tarp, behind schedule, but satisfied that I had found what I came for in the Bob.
Monday
I woke up shivering at 6 am, and packed up feeling good and ready to bust out the miles to cedar creek. After taking time to eat breakfast, my headspace and legs felt great, and I was proud of myself for getting back ahead of the fueling/recovery curve. I put on my pack and started off thru the brush towards the trail when I felt a twinge in my right foot. I have been nursing a tendonitis issue since a trip last month, and knew from experience that if I continued to irritate it, I would probably not be able to walk soon. I still can’t decide if this was bound to happen given my previous injury or if my going too fast on day one had finally caught up to me. Given how good my legs and feet felt that morning, I am inclined to think that it had little to do with recovery and that I would have tweaked it at some point climbing over deadfall over Lion creek pass and been in a world of hurt.
The decision to bail came unexpectedly, but I didn’t want to jeopardize plans for later in the week. The elegant choice was to float out to mid creek, so I blew up the boat and enjoyed some incredible river miles to the mid creek takeout. Free from the need to make miles, this may be my favorite part of the trip. I ran into a sign advising boaters to take out at the head of a small gorge. Confused if this was already meadow creek gorge, I took out and missed a few good rapids.
By mid creek, my foot had tightened up enough that walking was very painful, validating my decision to bail. Fortunately, the miles were easy and lots of trail work has been done to clear out deadfall after the fire. Given how bad going over lion creek pass sounded, I wonder if taking bunker creek to Inspiration pass would have been the better, if longer choice. Too bad nobody went that way, because floating down to mid creek was awesome!
I hitched a ride out and arrived at cedar creek just as Derek was loading his gear into the car. I also witnessed Adrien running back down the road after missing the finish. What a monster!
Despite my disappointment at not finishing, the trip ended on an excellent note, and I feel like my first experience in the Bob was a resounding success. I learned a lot, floated a huge stretch of the south fork, and enjoyed watching the fast guys kick my butt. I’ll likely be back, hopefully injury free and ready to rock!
The rest of the week
After retrieving my car from bean lake on Tuesday (thanks Derek), I played car tourist on the east side Tuesday and Wednesday as my legs recovered and my mind got antsy to be in the backcountry. Thursday and Friday, I rented a bike and at Dave’s suggestion bike-rafted the North Fork of the Flathead after riding the inside North Fork Road and camping at Kintla lake. The upper North Fork was incredible with views all morning into West Glacier. Saturday, I meet up with Dave and Little Bear for a fantastic ride up Going to the Sun Road. Definitely takes the cake for the most scenic road ride I have ever been on.
**Edited for formatting
