Gaucho and I had breakfast at the Montana Cafe, where we joined BootScoot, Dickhead (yes, that’s his name), Piper, Compass, and a couple of others.  Dickhead was cool, but it’s really odd to say to someone you don’t know “Dickhead, please pass the salt”.

Afterwards Gaucho and I walked across the street to hitch back to Lost Trail Pass – just in time for the Darby days parade. Traffic dropped to zero as they closed the highway off.  We patiently waited and waved as the fire trucks and logging trucks and hot rods and dirt bikes and ATV’s slowly paraded past, all the while throwing candy at us. I think they thought we needed food for our hike and kept unloading candy on us.  It was fun, and shortly afterwards a nice young couple gave us a ride to the trailhead.  We ran into Neon at the rest area near the trail head.  He was just coming out and looking for a ride into Darby.

The trail itself was exhausting.  My pack is too heavy with way too much food, and the trail followed ridges along the Idaho-Montana border with all their ups and downs.  This truly is a section of PUDs (pointless ups and downs).  The trail has no contouring around the peaks or switchbacks, and simply goes straight up and down all the peaks.

We did 17 miles to Big Hole Pass. There is a spring with excellent water coming out of a hose just a tenth of a mile down the west side of the pass.  I am here with Mav, Gaucho, and some section-hiking Nobos named Pot and Lid.