PNT - Polebridge, MT to Eureka, MT

Day 4 - Polebridge to Hay Lake  Daily Mileage: 16

Road, road, and more road!

As expected, I got a late start.  It was made even later by my running into a woman who was visiting small towns across the country to get inspiration for a book she was writing.  We chatted a while, as I polished off a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich from the bakery, and then she came to visit the hostel and joined me and several other hikers for breakfast #2 (turkey bacon, eggs, & potatoes).  Awesome!

I can't say enough good things about Polebridge, but I knew that I had to leave.  I walked out of town and headed south on the road for about a mile until turning off to the west on what I thought was Hay Creek Rd.  This would turn out to be my first among many times getting lost on the trail.  I spent about 30 minutes wandering down an ever fading road before deciding that there's no way it would lead me 16 miles back into the mountains.  I walked back out to the main street and in another tenth of a mile or so, found the obviously correct road.  The road was in great condition, and I secretly hoped to get a ride at least part way.  Of course, no cars came, but after a nice break in Polebridge, my feet felt great.  Probably the beer that did it.  Nature's cure.

I set up camp at the outlet of Hay Lake and called it an early day.  I want to make a good number of miles tomorrow and I'm hoping for an early start.

Day 5 - Hay Lake to Blue Sky Creek  Daily Mileage: 21

Nice ridge walking

I woke up around 6 to cloudy skies and began packing up my gear.  Just as I was stuffing everything into my pack, it started sprinkling, and I set off up the hill.  The rain was light, and a nice warm wind was blowing, so I just stayed in a t-shirt and shorts.  After about a mile, the road finally turned into an actual trail, which made walking much more enjoyable.  I had a 16 mile stretch without water, but hardly noticed due to some great high country scenery.  The second half of my day was spent up on ridgetops with nice views in all directions, with a pleasant breeze keeping the bugs off during my rest breaks.

The trail was quite faint in a lot of places, and I sometimes would stop and realize that I couldn't really find any noticeable trail.  It seemed like I was walking in a place that a trail should be, or maybe was once, but it didn't quite exist now.  Though I spent a few minutes lost at one point, it was kind of nice to keep my mind occupied with following what seemed to be a ghost of a trail.

I put in my longest day yet at 21 miles, and my feet were telling me to quit after about 18.  I was relieved to find a nice campsite by the river with no bugs.  No longer would I have to jump in my tent at 8pm to escape the damn bloodsuckers!  Dinner was mac & cheese with tapatio sauce.  Always delicious!  I also had a Payday bar to celebrate my first 20+ mile day.

Day 6 - Blue Sky Creek to Paradise Lake  Daily Mileage: ??

Paradise Lake

Got a late start this morning walking up the forest service road along Grave Creek.  A border patrol agent stopped to chat for a minute and he would be the first person I'd talked to in 3 days.  Again, had some great ridgeline walking for the first half of the day and passed the 100 mile mark!  1/12th of the way finished!  Celebrated with a Snickers.

On the descent towards the main road to Theriault Lakes, I somehow missed a turn and though I ended up on the correct road, I was about 2 miles off track.  I grabbed a hitch in the back of a pickup that dropped me off at what we thought was my next turn (FS road 7090).  I walked down a half mile and came to a deadend at the river.  I thought about fording it and bushwhacking up the hill to meet my trail, but decided against it at the last minute.  Good thing too, because I later realized I was about 2 miles away from where I thought I was.  Who knows where I would have ended up...

Stream

I went back out to the main road and just caught a hitch up to the campground at Little Theriault Lake.  I knew for sure that I could take a trail from there to meet up with the highline trail that I needed to be on.  Unfortunately, this meant that I would miss about 6 miles of spectacular trail in the 10 lakes scenic area.  Oh well...there were be more epic trail to come, I'm sure.  At least I got to meet a bunch of happy dogs in both of my rides.

I camped out at Paradise Lake, which turned out to be a pretty nice little spot.  Spent the evening exploring the area, and went for a little dip before bed.

Day 7 - Paradise Lake to Eureka, MT  Daily Mileage: 14

Paradise Lake in the morning

It was a very chilly night and morning.  I was warm enough in my long underwear and 40 degree bag, but I was definitely in a hurry to get moving.  I packed my stuff up quickly, and pulled some granola bars for breakfast on the road.  I hit the trail by 6am, and had a beautiful few hours of hiking as the sun came up over the mountains.  Not sure what it is, but there's something magical about hiking in the real early morning.  Even though there's no hum of cars during the day, the morning somehow seems quieter.

Anyway, it was a fairly quick hike down towards the town of Eureka.  Before I made it out to the main road, I had a 1 mile bushwhack to deal with that turned out to be surprisingly easy and painless.  Got a quick ride into town, and set up in a cheapish hotel for the night.  As I drove through the center of town, I saw that there was a "chicken jamboree" planned for that evening in the park.  I'm always up for a good jamboree, and if you throw chicken into the mix!?  Forget about it.  Unfortunately, it turned out to be two guys grilling chicken in the park with some of the worst folk music singing I've ever heard.  No one seemed to mind, but man it was painful.  This coming from a guy who likes bad folk music more than most.

I took a quick walk through town in hopes of finding a computer with internet so I could offload some pictures and get this journal going.  No luck, but I did walk past a store that claimed to offer a rock shop/massage/animal communicator.  Nice.  Trying to minimize the time spent on my feet, I had dinner at the casino next door to my hotel and watched the George Zimmerman verdict as I ate.  I was a bit surprised at the verdict, but I've been out of the news for a while, and really didn't know anything about the case.  I have nothing to say about the FOX news coverage.  Luckily, I did get to see a commercial for OnlyFarmers.com, which is an online dating site for farmers.  The volume was turned down, and the closed captioning wasn't perfect, but it mostly seemed to be pictures of farm animals.  Awesome!

Just outside Eureka.  Is that Sudden Valley!?