CDT Part 2 – Day 30 – Triple Divide Pass

8/28/21

Daily Miles: 14

2021 CDT Total Miles: 503

Overall CDT Total Miles: 2576

It rained a bit overnight, but the wind pretty much had our tarps dry by morning. We ended up having the campsite to ourselves last night…no one showed up after we went to bed.

Since we had another light hiking day, we didn’t plan to use alarms. Instead, we all just seemed to get restless around the same time, which was 7am. We packed up and headed out before 8am.

It was pretty chilly, so we had our wind pants and wind shirts on. Since it had rained overnight, the grass and plants along the trail were wet, and our feet and lower legs were soaked in short order.

We stopped after just a short time to eat a breakfast bar. As we were sitting along the trail, we could see mountain goats at the bottom of the cliffs above us. We could hear them bleating, which solved a mystery for Beardoh of the weird sounds he was hearing during the night.

We had a few miles of walking along a nice valley before we started our climb up to the Triple Divide Pass. The climb was really nice and very unique in that it didn’t have any switchbacks. It was as though the trail makers had drawn a straight line from the bottom of the climb to the pass and realized they didn’t need to do anything more.

The views along the climb were really spectacular. From the very tall waterfall flowing into a pristine alpine lake to a glacier tucked into a shelf to the green valley floor, it was hard not to just keep taking photos instead of walking. Even the trail work along parts was impressive, as the trail followed a very steep face at some points. It was probably one of the nicest and most scenic climbs we’ve had.

Once we got over the pass, the rest of our miles were either down or sort of flat with lots more great views. The beginning of the descent was a bit steep, but then it mellowed out. Once we got back down to the trees, we stopped for a lunch break.

The weather today seemed to be constantly shifting. While the sky was blue, it was pretty chilly, especially when the clouds would cover the sun. We also had a lot of wind, so whenever we would stop for a break, we would put on another layer. It wasn’t until the afternoon that we finally felt hot.

In the afternoon, we came to two quite small suspension bridges. We were surprised that they had gone to the effort of such a bridge for just a short span. But, suspension bridges are pretty fun, so they made us happy when we saw them.

We got to our designated campsite next to the Red Eagle Lake around 4pm. This campsite is within a valley which was pretty decimated by a forest fire in the past. While the valley was sad to walk through, it was extra sad to get to a campsite where we wouldn’t be able to hang our hammocks. We had expected this to be a possibility in Glacier NP, so we had sent our inflatable sleeping pads to ourselves in East Glacier.

We set out our sleeping pads and one of our hammock tarps for a night of sleeping on the ground, and then walked to the area designated for eating. We all sat around eating and getting ready for bed. As we were finishing up dinner, we noticed two moose, a mama and baby, wading into the lake in search of their own dinner. We watched them for awhile and then they headed off into the woods. Very cool.