Anaconda-Darby.

Day 27, July 13 Walked out of Anaconda, only about 6 miles. Camped next to the highway. Another group of three thruhikers that Scalliwag knows decided to quit in Anaconda, and they all bought tickets to Lima, Peru. Day 28, July 14 We got up when the morning commuters started driving by. Sunny in the morning. We finally got off of the roadwalk around midday and onto a real trail again, which is much easier on the feet. We had an amusing experience–we all use different navigation sources. I carry Jonathan Ley maps, which are USGS topo maps with the trail drawn on by a trail saint named Jonathan Ley. I also carry a Garmin GPS unit with the “northwest topos” maps loaded. This combo has worked great so far. Other people in the group use Gaia, the Guthook app, the databook, etc etc etc. Well, Gaia and Guthook didn’t recognize the new trail we were on, but my GPS unit did. We had all 3 GPS units out and were puzzling over them and the maps, when a day hiker in a cotton t-shirt came towards us down the trail, looked at us confusedly and said “Twin Lakes? Yah, it’s literally straight down this trail, there’s a huge sign…you really don’t need GPS to find it.” He probably thought we were nuts, with our huge backpacks and apparent complete lack of navigation skills. We got to the lakes, and huge thunderclouds blew in, and it was raining and hailing. We huddled under a tree under my ground cloth, and the storm passed, so we walked to Storm Lake. It was incredibly beautiful and pristine–a surprise alpine lake. We decided to camp here for the night and had another big campfire. Nights like this make me remember why I hike. Day 29, July 15 One month anniversary of my last day at Carolyn Downs. That whole world seems a million miles away. We woke up to grey skies today, and absolutely spectacular hiking. I had no idea that there was so much alpine, above-treeline hiking in this section. We are in the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness. Got rained and hailed on as I approached the first pass; waited out some big thunderclouds under my ground cloth, which I draped over myself like a ghost costume. That would’ve been a strange site for anyone coming up the trail. We walked all day and managed about 23 miles. This section is hard. Day 30, July 16 More time in the Anaconda-Pintlers today. It was beautiful, we went over 3 passes and had about 5000 feet of elevation gain over 24ish miles. We walked until about 9:00 pm down to a saddle; it was in a burn zone so there were a lot of dead trees and it took us a long time to find camping. Many laughs with this great group of people. Day 31, July 17 One month on trail. Veggie said “happy trail-aversary!” first thing in the morning. We got started about 8–it’s been hard to get started early with the late evenings. We walked on the Divide pretty much all day, through a lot of burn zone. Not a very pretty day. However, I did see my first moose ever today! ED and I were walking on a forest service road for 2 miles when ED saw it running off into the woods. The moose stopped about 70 feet from us and watched us,sniffing the air. It was a BIG animal. We hiked on, had dinner, then hiked till 9 when we were in some live trees and stopped. Ready for a short day and town tomorrow.