Bye bye butte

A slow departure, once again, out of Butte for us. Town time is getting more and more difficult to leave, for sure. We’re tired and drained, and even after a few days rest we’re still ready for more. 

The good news is, there was a shuttle fella in town who could easily give us a ride the 6 miles outta town to the trail. So even though we had a late breakfast, and mozied out of the hotel around 10, we were quickly on trail and hiking once again, towards Canada. 

With four days to Helena, our next resupply town, we made pushed down 25 mile days, even with our late start time. 

The trail loops around Butte, with another entry point to the town about 30 miles north of where we got on. There was definitely a potential to slack pack, but we just pushed through. The trail itself was beautiful, graded well, wide trail. All the things to be expected for a trail going around a town, so we were cruising along. 

A good friend sent me a cake from Milk Bar in NYC and instead of eating it in Butte, since it was packaged so well, I decided to pack it out. 

With tales of rain on the horizon, we kept getting our gear ready, but it never came. We got into camp and setup our tents as clouds started to loom over us. Nothing terribly crazy, though, as we ate our cake and enjoyed being back on the trail. 

The next day was a wet morning. We quickly packed up and made our way. We bolted down the mountain to the pass as quickly as possible and eventually the skies opened up. 

We met two runners along the way who were kind enough to take our trash (one of the nicest thing you can do for a hiker! It’s 100% dead weight). Continued onwards prepping for looming rain, but it never came. Someone even stopped to tell us that there was a lot of rain storms coming. 

Right before camp we were sitting by a cow gate (bars in the road with big gaps that be driven and walked over, but cows can’t get through as their hooves would fall through) and a couple drove by and gave us a beer. Yay! Only a few more miles into camp, too. 

We got into camp and setup, and made dinner. No rain yet, but eventually around midnight there was some steady rain for a few hours. Nothing terribly crazy, and thankfully it stopped before the morning when we were packing up.