HOO RA!

Well faithful followers we are back on the trail. After a solid week of East Glacier hospitality including meat 3 times a day yuck, pitch and putt, and heated scrabble tournies we are back to business. I, Nick, had logged about 30 miles previously and Alex about 60 miles. But who cares. Whose countin. We had a pleasant departure from the Krause family at Two Medicine with a brief walk through Aster Park area, Kelly identified a plethora of wild flowers and so began my list. On a side note I have three lists and more to come, a knot list, a animal sighting list, and a flower list. On this day we saw a female moose and her baby 2 cute.
We camped at Two Medicine a couple nights, one night we got a six pack of warm beer cans, what to do but tie them to our rope and throw them into a glaciated river, , Montana ice chest!How sweet it is! So we took off 7/10 the alternate route through dry fork canyon which ended with Old mAn Lake, a cirque, looks like a ice cream scooper scooped out a mountain and dropped a lake in, then hit Pitamakan pass. I could say more but it wouldnt do it justice. We ended the day at about 15 miles a solid day with great vistas. Oh yeah I found a tick in my underpants, luckily I caught the sucker gosh close call. The next day we headed up to Triple Divide Pass with our day packs lite load, and I think we found Alex's trail name, HOO RA!, he was just looking super military/Operation Freedom Bird. Anyways we saw some awesome rocks that are unexplainable to any of your human explanations. On this route we discussed Ishmael and the state of humans and our relation to the world. Up past the rocks we saw a family of Mountain Goats that let us real close, the baby was 2 cute. Triple Divide Pass was so epic, this area decides the water shed between the Atlantic, Pacific, and Hudson Bay in the space of my hand. When we peeked the pass their was a group of super cute girls which is part of a phenomenon that I like to call Cute Chipper Girls on Every Pass phenomenon. We took in the space around us or at least attempted to, failed because we have not the tools.
Back to base camp for lunch and then a stroll to Grizzly Medicine lake for breathing and looking. We were greeted at dinner by stories of curious Grizzlies down the trail 3 miles, and Florida couple with many gifts of food, hello two dinners and dessert. We retired early for preparation for the long and awesome day ahead of us.
We began day 3, 7/12 back towards Two Medicine. We made it the 6 miles back to Pitamakan Pass tired; storms were threatening but our decision to do the 4 mile ridge walk was reinforced by an Ohio couple also bound for it. We did the snow field up to the ridge, and viewed the expansive skies hinting in different ways. Geometry was present in rock structures atop the mountain. We could see red rock meeting lakes, snow capped mountains, alpine forests, and water falls all with a shift in your stance. The ridge trail was on average a foot and a half wide. With imminent death a slip away but it doesnt seem that bad when your up there. We met some Spaniards that offered us ague about 20 feet from the source oh me oh my, tasty. By far the most epic thing I 've seen here or anywhere else for that matter probably ever. We did the walk and bid farewell to our favorite part so far. After about an hour of down hill switchbacks we hit our stride and started going for the gold. After about the 16th mile we realized we could ford a creek to go right by a camp store, inevitably we went through the icy cold waters, and made it to the store. Here we may have had the best microwave hamburgers of our lives, and ate all the junk food in there, HOO RA! We meandered back to find a site. In all this the extent of my groin chafing was made apparent. Thanks to Alexs brilliant medical advice to Benadryl on it, a serpent breathed on me and would not stop. Alex accompanied me to the icy cold lake to submerge my nether regions, felt better and got some sleep. Thanks Alex.
Today it rained right off the bat, so we waited for the shuttle to take us to our Hostel lodging at Brownies. While waiting we met Michelle and George long distance hikers, looking to finish the CDT after 5 years, thanks for the lite weight tips guys.
We've just been eatin and drinkin dank Montana micro brews since.
Tomorrow we will prep for our biggest challenge yet in the Bob Marshall Wilderness a hundred mile 7 day segment. So I guess we will sign off until then, but we love you guys and miss you. Bye.