Backpacker CDT Trip- Jackson, MT

In 2001 while working for Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado, I first observed the amazing feats that a few dedicated volunteers could accomplish with masterful planning and efficient project management. I'll never forget how in one weekend VOC somehow met their goal of planting 1,000 trees, fed hundreds of hungry volunteers, and kept the whole project going despite a rain storm and windy weather. I was hooked back then and to this day consider myself a pretty big cheerleader for volunteering. With this rosy attitude, we took off on Saturday morning to drive 12 hours and 841 miles to Montana for the Backpacker Magazine CDT project.

My first impressions were a bit on the surreal side. Granted, we arrived at 1:30 am to a dark valley full of smoke and a town that seemed to consist of a neon-lit bar, some tractors and a mercantile store from about 50 years ago. It was pretty easy to identify the Jackson Hot Springs Lodge , being the focal point of the whole town and we were able to camp in the back yard and have a quick Moose Drool beer, before calling it a night.

In the morning, we met up with the first of our teammates, Skot Phrea from Texas. Skot had arrived in the area from the Kerrville Folk Festival and been hanging around a while. By the time we met him, his charisma had already made him a legend at the lodge. You meet lots of characters on the road less traveled and Skot was definitely one memorable guy. He was well read, possessed exhaustive knowledge of music, and seemed to be able to make new friends or run into old ones with remarkable ease. It was good to meet Skot because he shared our initial concerns that Backpacker had only sent the team one set of maps (is that a best practice?) and that our contact was mysteriously hard to follow up with. It is true that in the application Backpacker insinuated that this trip was a chance to get "loaded up with some free gear", but we were focused on an excuse to get out of Vegas and we never expected much. Really though, better communication would have been helpful. The first morning we sat with Skot on the lodge porch and tried to determine if we had just wasted a heckuva lot of gas to drive somewhere that was burning to a crisp. Aaron and I took matters into our own hands and made a trip into Wisdom, MT to the local diner Fetty's and the command center for the fire, where we were cleared to hike by the Forest Service. (Who, unfortunately, didn't really have much of a clue about our team or the trip. I guess they had bigger things on their minds like raging forest fires!) All that remained to do, was to meet up with the other two members of the team.

Back at the lodge, we spent a few hours talking to the lodge employees and speculating about the guys we had only briefly e-mailed with. Occasionally, we looked anxiously down the main drag to see if a Honda station wagon was approaching. Early in the afternoon, Tom and Jon arrived from the West Coast and we were all in the same place for the first time. Due to the spotty communication, failure of Backpacker to facilitate regular updates, and some general apathy, our team was probably not destined to win the Most Successfully Bonded CDT Team award. In fact, the atmosphere at the lodge was rather tense and uncomfortable. Skot was concerned about whether Backpacker was coming through on what he perceived to be their "end of the deal". Aaron and I were obsessing about the maps. And Tom and Jon were probably wondering what the heck they had gotten themselves into. My memory of the first hour of our team's illustrious start centers around a little table with a small pile of Sharkies, some maps, and four stressed out/road-weary people with not a lot to say to each other. Jon, probably the smartest one of us, kept himself occupied with his gear and combated the tension with a smart-ass comment here and there, ostensibly to keep the mood a bit lighter.

Nonetheless, the show must go on. And after Skot decided that he had better things to do than go hike in smoke without the promised new socks, we regrouped as a team of four and started planning the car shuttle. We scoped out the roads to Big Hole Pass and caravaned down some endless dirt roads to leave the car off the trail (near the sign above). Mostly, the drive took us through the ranch land below the Divide, we swerved past a cow or ten, and then ascended slightly to the rolling forested ridge of the Divide. The car parked, we headed into Wisdom and stopped for dinner.

Dinner was at the Antlers (Note: I think that was the name.) where we were waited on by what had to be one of the sweetest women in the entire world. This is a woman that had the patience to process 108 separate charge cards so that the firefighters in town could each have their own check. She is a saint. We ordered burgers, salads, sandwiches, and sodas and with the comforting effects of food, finally got a chance to converse as human beings. We got to know more about Tom, a seasoned Cascades mountaineer and former gear developer from Tacoma, Washington who was quiet and smart and shared many of our liberal political views. Jon, when he wasn't devouring one of his many menu choices (he's a graduate student that burns a LOT of calories being somewhat more motivated that the rest of us mere mortals), told us about his work with the Corvallis, OR Mountain Rescue Unit he volunteers with, his recent move out west, and his work and studies in geophysics at Oregon State. Things were finally starting to come together.

After dinner, we headed back to the lodge and had a couple beers at the bar. Jackson locals were truly amazing. There was the flirty-cute bartender with a penchant for cheesy country songs, a cowboy poet whose ranch brand was "FU", and Inga the stoic Scandinavian proprietress of the place. Skot was there carrying on conversations that varied from Townes Van Zandt, to recipes, to quoting the Bible. Jon, Tom, and Aaron and I soaked up the atmosphere and chatted a bit before leaving Mr. Phrea at the bar to crawl into our tents to sleep.