Bozeman to Ennis
We woke up from our road side camp and pushed forward. It’s either an 18 mile pavement road walk, or a 24 mile trail walk, into Big Sky. A few miles on pavement is fine, even nice at times as you can cruise a little faster. However, 18 is quite a bit. Foot fatigue happens much faster on pavement and the pain is definitely more noticeable after a full day. So we decided to take the few extra miles and hop on the trail.
The day was overall pretty smooth sailing. Lots of forest walking in the shade of trees. Luckily, water was plentiful as well. Without our maps of the CDT, we don’t have up to date information on water and trail conditions, and can only look at the map for marked creeks and rivers, and hope they’re not dried up.
We also ran into some folks from MSU planning a guiding trip for freshman. They had just passed some bear poop and were making a bunch of noise as I approached; think they thought I was a bear. We chatted for a bit and found out they were from Bozeman, where we hopped to be that evening.
Eventually we parted ways and I continued hiking. Hobo Toe had to stop for water so was a little bit behind me (he’s typically a bit faster and ahead) so I stopped off at an intersection and waited for him. Better to be together when route finding.
More miles pass by and we begin to descend into Big Sky. It was quite pretty, but we were pretty tired. Once down in town, we got a ride to the nearest food spot and had one of the best burgers I’ve had on trail. Even non trail version of me would have thought it was delicious.
We then made our way to the other side of town to the Post Office to grab my bear bag, woo! Although not really woo as it changes my packing method and system and adds weight. Oh well.
There’s a $5 bus from Big Sky into Bozeman that leaves from a stop near the post office, so we hung out there for a while and waited for the bus.
Hobo Toe has a friend with a hookup to a hotel chain, so we were able to get a crazy low rate on an actually nice hotel. It wasn’t anything fancy, a big chain hotel, but it was nice to mix it up from our typical dingy motel (and at much less the cost!). We ordered dinner to the hotel room and went to bed.
The next day we woke up and made our way to take care of some errands. HT needed to get his new shoes from the UPS pickup spot, which was conveniently across from REI where we got some fuel and a few other things. Then on the way back to the hotel we hit up the food store to grab our resupply. We even ran into a few other hikers, two of whom I haven’t seen in a long while, and two new folks (one HT knew and hiked with for a while).
We dropped everything at the hotel and decided to go check out downtown. Another hiker on the trail is from here and works at a nice restaurant on Main Street, so we decide to make our way to it. Luckily there’s uber there and we didn’t have to walk the 2.5 miles into downtown.
When we get in the car the lady says the street we picked is actually closed, so she can only drop us a block away. She tells us that every couple thursdays in town they shut down Main Street and have a big music festival with food and drinks and so on. We had just stumbled upon it, but there were a tooooon of people. We had a couple drinks, listened to some music (ironically the band was from Brooklyn) and ate a bunch of food. Eventually all the people became a bit overwhelming to us, so we made our way back to the hotel to get a good nights rest. Tomorrow we would be back on trail.
But man oh man was the next morning a slow start. We woke up at a decent time, but took our time getting showered and packing up. It was a bit rough to get going mainly because we were so comfortable and it was a cool town and we didn’t really want to leave. So we make our way to a diner to get some breakfast. Had good reviews and was nearish to the bus back, so we went there. A super cute place, we enjoyed some good food and coffee and then looked at the bus times. Admittedly, we should have the night before… but we found out that the bus departed at: 6a, 7a, 1p, 3p, and 4p. So basically, it wasn’t running when we needed it too.
We decide to make our way to the museum of the Rockies. A part of the Smithsonian and quite the spot from what we’ve heard. Along the way, we remember uber. We plug in the trailhead, and it’s actually not terribly expensive. Only about 40 minutes away, I’ve spent three times as much on photo shoots to get people from Brooklyn to manhattan during rush hour. So, with us splitting it, we decided to go for it and uber to the trail. Uber. Guthooks. Technology is crazy. Has definitely changed thru hiking!
We make our way to the trail and then start off our hiking. Still shaking off the slowness of leaving town, we decided to only hike 8 miles to a lake and call it an early day. The main reason we were okay with that was because we found we could make it to Ennis the following day with 26-28 miles. A long day, but relatively normal in general, so we took it easy to the lake.
There was actually a USFS crew there doing work on the trail and camping at the lake. A couple of them went fishing after the shift ended as we had just finished our dinner sitting on the side of the lake.
We’re definitely at the point of the trail where we are just tired. We’ve burned every reserve we have and live bar to bar. We’ve seen some of the most beautiful mountains in the country, and while we still have more to see, a majority of them feel similar to others and we keep our heads down and trudge forward (that being said, the Spanish Peaks outside of Big Sky truly are beautiful). All in all, while we’ve been having a good time, we’re ready to be done. The short hiking day definitely helped a bit as we could relax in a beautiful camp for a little while.
Today we woke up and started our day to Ennis. A bit of a late start, and then filled with a couple lengthy breaks, it wasn’t the most expeditious of days. However, we still crushed our miles. There was a lot of uphill, although it was quite nicely graded. We were once again mostly in forest, and with the smoke having picked up today, there wasn’t a ton of far off views. The main difficulty of the day was the heat. It started beating down. Upwards of 90 degrees out. Funny how I had just complained about the colder mornings, and now the heat is killing us. No happy medium, it would seem.
Eventually we made our way down to Ennis Lake and to the road that would bring us to town. We started hitching and the first two cars stopped to say sorry they were full. Either way, nice of them to stop. A little while later another fella stops and gives us a ride all the way into town and recommends a good spot to eat some food.
We sit down in the booth and start calling hotels. There aren’t meany in town, but a few. And I called them all. All completely booked. Even the RV park is full, no ones got any space anywhere.
Already late (8:30ish) there was no way to get back to the trail. So we walk around town and then to the back of the football field. It reminded me of the time in Vermont (if memory serves right, which it may not, but somewhere in that area) when Andy and I camped off in the woods behind a school football field in town.
Side note, for you uncle Joe, Camel is Andy’s trail name. I called him camel because he would just drink a bunch of water when he could and never touch his hydration bladder. He’d drink almost no water during the day. Somewhere in Tennessee an older couple asked our trail names, to which I replied “this is camel, and I’m dusty”. She turned around and said “oh, the dusty camel!” Ever since then, we had signed registers as The Dusty Camel and then created this site.
Anyhoo, Hobo Toe and I are full on hiker trashing it up by sleeping in the bleachers of the high school. The other side is more visible and near houses, and with the angle upwards this is quite secluded and protected from view. Although it’s a bit warm at this low elevation and we don’t want to put up our tents to be more visible. So here we are. Just laying on our pads on the bleachers. But hey, we walked into the RV a park and took a shower. So at least we are relatively clean. So there’s that. I just hope a mouse doesn’t run across my face in the middle of the night…
