A lot of CDT hikers met today and overlapped. There was the original group I started with (Grizzly, Crunchmaster, and Snake Bite) plus a couple of other hikers. There had been some route finding issues trying to find where to cross the middle fork of the Flathead River. Eventually we solvde that problem and got on the path.
The goal was Dean Lake. It would be about a 20 mile day. Most travel was rolling up and down following streams. However, around 4:00, we started our ascent. As you know by now, climbing at higher elevation is not my strong suit. Once we got around 6,00′ feet, I finally took out my trekking poles. Everybody was passing me as we made our way up along Trilobite Ridge. The trail became the drainage creek for the remaining snow. It was cold, hard, muddy, and wet.
Still, there was beauty. At one point there was a spring on the trail where the water shot out of the middle of a boulder at a fairly good flow rate. Plus, being able to look back down at the valley below was cool. Eventually, by 7:00 we reached Dean Lake. It is a beautiful snow fed lake with granite peaks as a backdrop.
backpacking over the hill 