Montana Rain

(Friday June 24)

I use a Delorme inReach product.  It has a weather forecast feature.  We awoke to sunny skies.  We all made fun of the “forecast” which called for rain at 7:00 am, but within an hour it was a full throttled thunderstorm.  But that was OK.  That is because we were heading to the famous Chinese Wall and the sounds of thunder echoing off the wall were going to be amazing.

The others left camp before me,  I tried to catch up, but got lost in some snowfields and had to angle my way over to where I eventually intercepted the trail.  I still get a little nervous being off-trail in a wilderness area.  But I continue to grow confident on using common sense and the topographical maps.

I reached the Chinese Wall about half-way through the thunderstorm.  It cleared for about 30 minutes creating a photo-opp of the whole wall.  However, after 30 minutes of clear sky,  a day-long drizzle commenced.

Before leaving the Chinese Wall (it’s about 10 miles long) I was able to get some photos of low clouds swooping down the cliff face.  It looked like something out of a movie set.

I eventually caught up to Grizzly’s group.  We were all pushing for the next resupply point, Benchmark Ranch.  Crunchmaster went ahead and found a site just as the rain was going to start up again.  The problem was that we were in a forest that had burned about 10 years ago.  Consequently, a lot of dead, burned trees were still standing, waiting for the right time to fall down.  He found a clearing where it looked like if the trees at the edge blew over they would not reach the tents.  Ended up finding a campsite in a clearing of dead trees.  Fell asleep to wind and drizzle.  Probably hiked about 23 miles in 12 hours.