Continental Divide Trail News

Continental Divide Through the Wyoming Great Basin

2008-09-22T11:33:00.000-07:00

Rock Cairn Just South of South Pass City

The Great Basin is the only place that the Continental Divide splits, creating a basin. Official CDT routes go around it East and West. I think the best route is right through the middle. Leaving the Oxbow Nat. Forest I suggest cutting cross country to Wamsutter which puts you right in position to cross the Basin in three long days of hiking. This was my experience:

My original plan was to head straight north from Wamsutter until I reached a junction with the official CDT route and follow the trail west to Atlantic City. An hour after I left Wamsutter, I was still considering other options. According to my map, the Hay Reservoir was off to the northwest which held the promise of water and a much more direct route to Atlantic and South Pass City.

Shortcuts do not always work out the way you plan them. I considered the Donner Party and their peril as they took the shortcut through the Sierras in the 1800s—one good reason not to deviate from my original plan worked out with the Bureau of Land Management staff. But in this case, my original plan had no more merit than any other cockamamie idea I could come up with. I decided to take the shortest route to the Sweetwater River, the only water source I knew I could rely on.

Because of gas exploration and development in the lower Basin, there are roads going in every direction. Even here in this remote and barren moonscape, the Earth seems in chaos, dealing with the constant onslaught of man. When in doubt which road to take, I pulled out my GPS and cut across the sagebrush until I junctioned with a road that seemed to be going in the same direction that I was. Even though I had not seen a rattlesnake in over two months of hiking, I kept thinking about my breakfast tutor (Oldtimer who told me there were rattlesnakes all over the basin) and looking for serpents on top of each of the million plants I brushed.

The second morning, I found a flowing well at Lost Creek Fork. By noon I ate lunch near the Hay Reservoir, and, though it was dried up, I found enough puddles to pump water through my purifier and wash down my cheese tortilla. The morning of my third day, I passed Scotty Lake which was not saline as I had been told and there was plenty of water. At this point I cut cross country and north around the west side of Picket Lake to reach the Forks-Atlantic City Rd., a two-track which would lead to South Pass City.

During the afternoon, I came across another flowing well near a stock tank. By evening, I was sitting on the shore of the Sweetwater River, drinking my fill. Because of cloudy overcast days with sprinkles now and then, I was able to hike thirty plus miles each day, reaching the trail to South Pass City on the third day.

For me, the Great Basin was a quiet land of solitude with its own magical landscape. I sat in the ruts of the Oregon Trail and looked back over the terrain and time. I realized, once again, that knowledge and experience turn fears into facts, dragons into friends.

For nearly a hundred miles, I could see the Wind River range to the northwest. It seemed like an oasis to be reached, rewarding me for crossing this dry alkali basin. I could see rain from the Winds dissipate as it was blown across the basin.

From "Crossing the Divide" by Richard Mallery

thenewspaperthatwalks.com

Finishing the Continental Divide Trail in Glacier National Park

2008-09-21T07:30:00.000-07:00

The first part of September, northbound CDT hikers begin showing up in Glacier National Park to finish an incredible journey that has taken them months of hiking along the rocky spine of North America. They are feeling euphoric. They have hiked to Glacier from the U.S. border with Mexico. The weather is usually perfect in Glacier the first part of September, and the hordes of tourist have left for the season.

I remember several casual conversations with people I ran into during the five days it took me to hike through Glacier at the end of my CDT hike. Near the end of the trek it was always worth a laugh when explaining to people that I started in Mexico.

I ran into a guided group returning from Grinnell Glacier. Telling them about my hike I mentioned Andy, Laura and Leslie (the three other Northbound hikers in 1999) also in the vicinity. When I said I hadn’t seen the girls since Colorado and that I had only hiked with Andy for 500 miles, they all thought that was hilarious. Yelling things like, "SINCE COLORADO!—500 MILES!"

Another humorous incident took place hiking through the Many Glacier Lodge area. It was almost dark and a woman sitting out on the balcony of her hotel asked me where I was headed. I told her I was going down the road to the Swiftcurrent campground. She said, "That’s a long way and it’s getting dark."

I said, "It’s only about a mile."
"Where are you coming from," she inquired.
"Mexico," I replied. "I started in April and hiked the Continental Divide."
She almost fell out of her chair.

Once you reach Glacier you can choose several routes through the park to finish your hike. I used what I assume is the default route. For me it was a five day easy hike. With 3,000 miles under my belt I felt bullet-proof. Long mileage days were enjoyable in the perfect Indian Summer weather I was gifted with.

Some Choices (in my opinion)
Once you exit "The Bob" you cross Hwy. 2 at Marias Pass. You will see CDT signs if you cross the road and the RR tracks and look along the tree line. My five days took me first to Two Medicine where I picked up a hiking permit, then Red Eagle Lake, Swiftcurrent, Granite Park, Fifty Mtn. and out at Waterton townsite. The first half of the first day from Marias Pass to the town of East Glacier is boring. You end up hiking through thick vegetation that is not used often. It is not the kind of trails people travel to Glacier to explore. It is a necessary link to the park proper. From East Glacier to Canada you are on some of the premiere hiking tread in the world. Well worth the price of admission.

My suggestion would be not to exit the park at Chief Mountain unless that is logistically better for you because of transportation or scheduling reasons. Going to Goat Haunt and crossing the border into Waterton is so spectacular and uplifting.

Other route choices: a. Instead of going up to historic Granite Park from Swiftcurrent, go north through the Ptarmigan Tunnel and follow the valley up and over Stoney Indian Pass. This is another spectacular route.

b. If you want to stay closer to the Divide proper you can head west from Two Medicine, through the Nyack to Sperry and then take the Floral Park route across to Logan Pass, the Highline Trail to Granite Park and on to Goat Haunt. This is awesome terrain, but needs more respect than it gets. You are not a novice hiker if you have come this far but Floral Park is not a trail, it is only a route. You should be familiar with this route before you tackle it.

Backpacker Magazine did a short story on this route a couple years ago making it sound like a day hike in the alpine that anyone can pull off. No so. An example would be A hiker named, Yi-Jien Hwa, who attempted it this fall and has not been found yet. Thousands of hours of search and rescue with hundreds of volunteers have turned up no sign of him.
I'm not trying to scare anyone from using this route I am just making a point. Wilderness can be unforgiving if you are not prepared, and sometimes even if you are.

If you are as thankful as I am about the many wilderness areas that have been protected by forward thinking individuals in our short history, you will be interested in watching for this documentary set for release next year:

"The National Parks: America's Best Idea" is to air in autumn 2009 on PBS. This will be a six- part, 12 hour series produced by Ken Burns, a name we all equate with quality film.
One of the country's most startling innovations, Burns says, was the creation of a national park system in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
"For the first time in human history, land was set aside not for the pleasure of kings and noblemen and the very, very rich, but for everybody, for all time."
With the parks project, he says, he wants to explore the movement that set aside Yellowstone and Yosemite and created the national park system. These seem like astonishing, out-of-character moves, he says, "in a culture so dedicated to the almighty dollar, so dedicated to a kind of extractive and acquisitive mentality. So how did this happen? Who were these people?"

These areas continue to be threatened by all of us--all of our needs, wants and desires. Let's pray we make the wise decisions that have protected these areas in the past and have preserved them for our generation. Let's hope we can continue to pass them along to a respectful upcoming generation of conservationist. --Keep Smilin', Dick E. Bird

BLM to Kill Our Wild Horses

2008-09-04T17:37:00.000-07:00

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has announced plans to kill America's wild horses rather than effectively manage our wild natural heritage. BLM claims it can no longer afford to round up wild horses and confine them until it finds people to adopt them, and the agency wants to euthanize these majestic wild beauties or sell them to the highest bidder "without limitation" - meaning sell them to anyone, even if the bidder also plans to kill these horses.

Why does BLM need to round up wild horses and send them to slaughter? The BLM claims that the agency can't "allow horses to multiply unchecked on the range without causing an environmental disaster." But there are less than 30,000 wild horses on the range versus at least 3 million grazing cows. So rather than address the environmental damage caused by cattle overgrazing and expanding oil and gas exploration on our public lands, the BLM would rather placate corporate cattle ranchers who view mustangs as competition for forage, and drive wild horses - our country's symbol of freedom and independent spirit - to extinction.

If you have hiked the Continental Divide Trail across the Red Desert (Rawlins, Wyo. to South Pass City) you have seen some of these incredible animals and they have made you pause.

Continental Divide/The Backbone of the World

2008-09-04T05:58:00.000-07:00

The Backbone of the World is another book I would like to recommend. I bought it because the prologue said the author hiked the Continental Divide Trail the same year I did, starting in April of 1999. I was curious why I never saw or heard of him. As it turns out he only made it to the first stop—Silver City. But he does go on with his vehicle over a period of years and interviews people and covers many of the political issues that plague the progress of putting this thin line of pathway on the ground from Mexico to Canada. Frank Clifford is a talented writer as is Bill Bryson. They just seem to have a hard time putting one foot in front of the other for too many miles and sleeping on hard ground. I found this book to be a great read and highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the Rocky Mountain region and the Continental Divide.

El Morro National Monument

2008-08-17T05:59:00.000-07:00

Your CDT hike may or may not include a stop at El Morro Nationa Monument depending on the route you choose. It is well worth a visit.

El Morro National Monument, a much-carved bluff in the high desert of western New Mexico.
Anasazi, with one layer of Spanish colonialism and another of American Manifest Destiny, all seen through the lens of National Park Service stewardship.

OVERALL
Don't think of it as a landscape. Think of it as the best guest ledger in the West, about 200 feet, top to bottom, and made of sandstone.
On it you can find handprints, stick-figure animals and signatures in fancy looping script -- more than 2,000 inscriptions, carved over seven centuries by overland travelers who stopped here to dull their thirst.
"Governor Don Juan de Oñate passed through here, from the discovery of the Sea of the South on the 16th of April, 1605," says one entry in Spanish.
"Miss A.F. Baley," says another, from 1858.
Still, you may not have heard of El Morro National Monument, a.k.a. Inscription Rock, because it's out of the way, even by rural New Mexico standards. South of Gallup, west of Grants. Just up the road from the Pueblo of Zuni, just down the road from the ancient cinders and lava tubes of El Malpais National Monument.

To reach it from Albuquerque, you drive 85 miles west on Interstate 40 to Grants, then take New Mexico 53 for 42 miles. On the way, you climb from the high desert and red rock to the even higher desert with its forests of ponderosa and pinyon pine. You cross the Continental Divide, surrounded by scrub that grows thick and green during the monsoons of July and August, and then a white-orange bluff rises abruptly from the plain, its base about 7,200 feet above sea level. This is El Morro, which translates, more or less, from Spanish as "the headland."
In landscape terms, it's a not a mesa but a cuesta, because it rises in a gradual slope at one end, then drops straight down at the other. Pine and juniper congregate on and around it. A pre-Columbian condo complex sits on top -- about a dozen rooms exposed among an estimated 875 that once held 1,000 residents in the 13th and 14th centuries.
But it's not those dwellings nor the shape of the rock that makes El Morro unique. It's the water and the names.

For hundreds of years, the pool of collected rainfall and snowmelt at the foot of this rock was the only reliable water supply for 30 miles around, maybe more. That made it a standard stopping point for anybody passing through, including the Anasazi of the 13th century, Spanish explorers of the 17th century and American settlers of the 19th century.
Oñate, New Mexico's first Spanish governor, left his mark after a visit to the Gulf of California. Miss Baley, the first woman to sign, was part of a wagon expedition from Missouri to California. There's a 4-inch-high swastika, left by native peoples centuries before the Nazis adopted it. And there's the flowery script of Mr. E. Pen. Long of Baltimore, an 1859 visitor whom you could call the John Hancock of El Morro.

In 1906, the federal government stepped in and banned further inscriptions. Until the 1930s, early rangers used pencils to darken a few of the oldest inscriptions. In their bid to protect the past-tense graffiti from the present-day variety, rangers have put up a couple of sandstone rocks in front of the visitor center to channel the energies of scratch-happy kids.
"Certainly all the other rocks in America do not, all together, hold so much of American history," wrote Charles F. Lummis, the champion of Western history who founded the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles.
Visiting today, you browse the visitor center, then stroll a half-mile loop of the Inscription Trail, moving from petroglyph to signature. Hardier hikers continue up the Headland Trail, which adds 1.5 miles to the journey and climbs 200 feet to the Atsinna Pueblo on top of the rock.
I did the Headland Trail (also known as the Mesa Top Trail) with ranger Aleksu Hillerstrom, who pointed out a tree that had been struck by lightning a month before (that's common in summer) and helped me read between the inscription lines.
One Spanish explorer called himself a gentleman, but one of his contemporaries vigorously crossed out the word. An American in 1849 misspelled the word "inscription" and had to wedge the "r" in after the fact. (Copy editing in stone. Bummer.)
I wouldn't build an entire trip around El Morro, but if you're on the road anywhere between Flagstaff and Albuquerque, it's surely worth a few hours, perhaps an overnight.
You can spend the night at Grants (a town of about 9,000), but the summer temperatures are cooler and the scenery better up around El Morro. In summer, the park service opens nine primitive campsites at the monument. About a mile away on the highway, El Morro RV Park has about two-dozen hook-ups for $20 nightly, three cabins at $65 to $75, and a handful of tent sites for $10.
The neighboring Ancient Way Cafe offers breakfast, lunch and dinner, and the Inscription Rock Trading & Coffee Co. offers snacks and gifts, and the nonprofit Old School Gallery shows art.

'Blitz' to test water at hundreds of locations in Rocky Mountain National Park

2008-08-12T09:56:00.001-07:00

by Bill Scanlon
Bears will puzzle over what's going on in their park Tuesday when dozens of researchers and trained volunteers dip flasks into streams, lakes and wetlands on both sides of the Continental Divide.
The great Water Blitz isn't the latest ride at Water World, but an ambitious one-day odyssey to test water at hundreds of different locations at Rocky Mountain National Park.
"It's one of the first efforts of this kind on such a scale in the world," Judy Visty, research administrator at RMNP, said.
The idea is to circumvent the kind of problem researchers face when they test one stream on a sunny day, another the next day after a rain, a third the following day when the algae are photosynthesizing to beat the band.
This "snapshot in time" will capture the state of the water throughout the park and help scientists understand where extra nutrients are harming the ecosystem.
"The park is a natural lab, more pristine than the surrounding area," yet affected by fertilizers and pollution from the rest of Colorado, Visty said.
They're hoping to find some patterns that could explain why the massive beetle kill of lodgepole pines and other trees is so much larger than in past infestations.
As the lodgepole pines go, so do the sapsuckers and other birds that feed on their bounty.
Scientists want to learn more about the species of algae that have proliferated in lakes, multiplying ever since the 1950s with the explosion of nitrogen-based fertilizers.
"If we have nitrogen pollution arriving with precipitation, is it worse in some places than others?" Visty said. "How does it show up in the streams? We know it collects in precipitation, but what actually happens when it goes into the water?"
Researchers will be in charge of the veteran volunteers who, for this project, got hour-long training in water-sample-collection techniques.
"This is a citizen science project," Visty said. "It shows how citizens can make really tremendous contributions. Many pairs of helping hands allow scientists to investigate on a scale he or she could never dream of doing alone."

The Continental Divide National Scenic Trail Needs Work

2008-08-04T06:22:00.000-07:00

Trail that traces the Rockies' backbone through Colorado still is far from complete more than 30 years after its start

By Scott WilloughbyThe Denver Post

You would never know from the smiling faces and feel-good vibes emanating from the hardy folks entrusted with keeping the fractured spine aligned, but after 30 years of rehab there's no denying the diagnosis. The Continental Divide Trail could use a little love.
Not familiar with the CDT? Join the club.
Despite more than 30 years in the making, the so-called "King of Trails" remains third in line to the throne occupied by its more popular cousins to the east (the Appalachian Trail) and west (the Pacific Crest) when it comes to hiking empires. Although all are recognized by Congress as a result of the National Trails System Act of 1968, the 3,100-mile CDT running right down the spine of the Rocky Mountains through Colorado remains a full 1,000 miles away from fulfilling its destiny. "The trail is actually the longest north-to-south in the U.S., but there are a thousand miles of it that we haven't actually completed, that are either missing or are on roads," said Teresa Martinez, director of field operations for the Pine-based Continental Divide Trail Alliance (CDTA). "It's supposed to be kind of 'the people's trail system,' owned and maintained by the public for future generations. But people are often unaware that it even exists."
The notion of a hiking trail spanning the backbone of America would seem like a natural to many Coloradans. And indeed it did to David Maceyka of the now-defunct Rocky Mountain Trail Association, who joined Appalachian Trail founder Brenton Mackaye and members of the Colorado Mountain Club in walking a segment of the proposed CDT through Colorado back in 1966.
The so-called "Blue Can Trail" that Maceyka hiked and marked (with blue cans) for the Forest Service to locate and approve between Empire and Rocky Mountain National Park became the first leg of what now spans some 800 miles of CDT through Colorado and the impetus behind the National Trails System Act. Congress
A hiker encounters lingering snow on the Continental Divide Trail, which some call the nation's "King of Trails." ultimately voted to include a trail spanning the length of the Divide from Canada to Mexico among the National Scenic Trail system in 1978, identifying a 50-mile wide corridor on either side of the Divide to locate its final route. Problem is, Congress didn't allocate any actual land (beyond 1,900 miles of existing trails and primitive roads) or any money to the cause, leaving the trail to find its own way.
"One reason the Act was written the way it was is their belief in volunteerism, through that public engagement and empowering and ownership of this trail system, that money would not be as critical because you'd have these volunteers and that support system to work with the (federal) agencies to accomplish great things," said Martinez, a former trail program manager for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. "With the CDT, the organization is preceding the cause in many ways. A lot of clubs have embraced the trail, but they're not organized solely as trail clubs that maintain and manage and advocate for the CDT. That's where the CDTA has been really strong in providing that volunteer component."
Minimal coordination among agencies and nearly nonexistent public involvement for almost two decades ultimately led to the 1995 creation of the CDTA, whose 3,000 members remain devoted to the completion, maintenance and protection of the trail 30 years after its nascence.
CDTA officials estimate that 70 percent of the often stunning trail spanning five states, 20 wilderness areas, three national parks and 25 national forests is usable today. The estimated cost to complete a scenic trail away from motorized routes is another $27 million. The return, according to some, is priceless.
"I feel sorry for people who don't ever get to see this," said Ken Thompson, who made the trip from Lawrence, Mich., to attend last weekend's annual Trailfest celebration of the CDT in Buena Vista.
Thompson and his wife, Kim, were hiking a new segment of the CDT above 12,200-foot Cottonwood Pass to fulfill the wish of his recently deceased farming partner, Ray Miller, who donated 10 percent of his estate to the CDTA after through-hiking the trail years ago.
"He wanted me to come here with him for years," Thompson said. "Now I can see why."
Hundreds of others took part in the CDTA's annual awareness event, which included guided hikes as both a showcase and a recruiting effort for the trail. While the remoteness of the CDT provides a memorable experience that is increasingly sought and difficult to find, it also speaks to the physical challenges trail managers face in fulfilling their vision.
"That elevation and exposure factor is a challenge that something like the AT doesn't have, but it's also the beauty of it," Martinez said. "That's why our volunteers are so uniquely special, because they buy into that hook, line and sinker — game on."
And not surprisingly, Colorado leads the CDTA's volunteer efforts with roughly half of the 900 annual trail builders hailing from the state with the highest concentration of tall peaks in the nation. Some 43 projects are in the works trailwide this summer. Still, of the 800 miles of the Divide Trail passing through Colorado, 225 remain to be completed or rerouted.
Completed or not, the CDTA has set a goal of 2018 to at least have the entire trail mapped out, away from roads and closer to the original vision of a truly scenic national trail.
"Will it ever be done? I think that's up to the American public to determine," Martinez said. "I think there will always be something to be done. It's a legacy project that engages every single one of our citizens and it will depend upon every generation to make sure that it continues to exist.
"A trail is a living organism. The public can be a part of that life. But it's a lot of work."
Get involved: The Pine-based Continental Divide Trail Alliance offers volunteer opportunities spanning from half a day to five days with levels of difficulty ranging from family-friendly to full-blown backpacking. Find out more by visiting http://www.cdtrail.org/ or calling 303-838-3760 or 800-909-CDTA.

Two Lads From Across the Pond Take The Challenge

2008-07-17T08:32:00.000-07:00

All European hikes seem like a walk in the park compared to the adventure Paul Hayton of Eaglescliffe has embarked on.

The 31-year-old senior designer is on a mission to cover 3,100 miles on foot from Mexico to Canada.

Together with his old university pal, Simon Cook of London, Paul is walking across the USA following the Continental Divide Trail. The wilderness trail runs along The Rocky Mountain range crossing five states, 25 national forests, three national parks and three Indian reservations.

Carrying all they need to survive on their backs, the duo are walking more than 20 miles a day, six days a week for six months through mountainous terrain.

Paul and Simon started out on May 1 and have encountered heavy snow, water scarcity and their first bear.

Paul’s mum Barbara, 53, a machine operator from Eaglescliffe, said: “They are doing this to raise funds for The Cystic Fibrosis Trust as they both have friends who suffer from this currently incurable disease.

“Paul’s one of these lads who will push and push and he just lives for a challenge.”

Paul said: “Back in 2000 when we left university we made a pact to walk the Continental Divide Trail in 2008. We chose it purely because it was the longest walk we could find any information on.”

The former Egglescliffe School pupil and Yarm Army Cadet, said the San Juan mountains were one of the best sections of the trail so far.

Simon, 31, said: “There is something great about being the first people to make tracks in the snow but it does mean that you have to be constantly alert to where you are and where you’re heading.”

Paul said their shortest pit stop was when they almost came face to face with a bear.

“Before our packs hit the ground I heard a deep grunting or growling sound that sounded nothing like any animal we had heard before.

“Our packs were on our backs quicker than we took them off and as we moved away talking very loudly and making as much noise as possible I turned to see a bear the size of a small car pounding down the hill before it stopped under a tree a short distance away. We did not stick around to appreciate this animal.”

The Continental Divide Trail Planning

2008-07-16T20:37:00.000-07:00

by Joseph Hazelbaker
The Continental Divide Trail (CDT) was created by Congress in 1978 and covers 3,100 miles through five U.S. states from the Canadian to Mexican borders. Nicknamed the "King of Trails" as it will be the longest continuous backcountry trail in the U.S., the CDT is scheduled to be complete in 2008. Currently, seventy percent of the trail is hikeable.

Tackling a trail of this magnitude requires complex planning. Due to its relative youth, and incompleteness, the CDT lacks the "thru-hiking" infrastructure and reconnaissance that more established trails like the Appalachian and Pacific Crest Trails have. If you are planning on hiking the CDT, your first stop should be the Continental Divide Trail Alliance (CDTA). There website is located at www.cdtrail.org.

CDTA manages the trail and publishes and sells several guidebooks and videos that will be critical for you to reference. These include the four volumes of the CDT official guide. You will also find books about the other two long trails in the U.S. helpful. For example, Ray Jardine's PCT Hiker's Handbook is considered not just a classic guidebook for the Pacific Crest Trail, but also a vital handbook for hiking long trails. Other examples of useful crossover resources are the AT Thru-Hiker Planner and the AT meal planner.

In addition, there are several books you should consider that address hiking long trails generally, such as Hiking the Triple Crown: How to Hike America's Longest Trails. Good sites for these resources are:

www.appalachiantrail.org

www.pcta.org

In order to plan hiking the entire length of the CDT, you'll need to put in a lot of planning, more so than in hiking any of the other long trails in the U.S. You will also, undoubtedly, need to do a lot of scouting in advance to determine suitable towns for mail drops and to create emergency contingency plans. The good news is, if you pull off a CDT thru-hike, you'll have an experience that's worth writing about and that few others in the world will have.

Happy trails!

The Continental Divide Trail

2008-07-15T14:57:00.000-07:00

Spanning from the Canadian border down to Mexico, the Continental Divide Trail is one of the most incredible hikes in America. And you don't need to be superhuman to do it.

By James Ross Gardner

You're never climbing Everest. There's no Arctic expedition in the cards. But the almost finished Continental Divide Trail you can do. No extensive training. No specialized gear. Just six months of doing what even the most accomplished long-distance hikers refer to as walking. Walking. Thirty-one hundred miles of walking, through some of the most rugged terrain in the country, from the Canadian border to Mexico.

Compared with the nation's other two big scenic hikes, the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail, which see hundreds of annual through-hikers, the CDT sees about thirty people complete it each year. That will change as the trail improves. And this past spring, a new forty-mile section of trail in Wyoming opened, and another sixty miles are being blazed through the Colorado Rockies in time for the 2009 season. For now, hikers navigate "unfinished" sections with topo maps from the Continental Divide Trail Alliance (cdtrail.org) -- and in some cases circumambulate via dirt roads. Despite the improvements, the CDT will still be tough enough for lifetime bragging rights. Montana is especially grueling: In Glacier National Park, you cross snow bridges in mid-June -- only to endure 90 degree heat in thistle-choked cow pastures a week later.

Your concerns are mostly about survival. Will I make the next ridge by nightfall? Where will I find water? But you're asking those questions amid what is arguably the most spectacular and variegated stretch of land in North America: from the red-rock skyscrapers of New Mexico's El Malpais National Monument to Montana's Chinese Wall (twelve miles of thousand-foot limestone cliffs).

Expert hikers do it in 145 days. Expect to take 180. And to have a story no one can top.

Opinion Is Split On Continental Divide Trail -- Push To Finish 3, 100-Mile Path Stirs Up Old Territorial Disputes

2008-07-14T08:54:00.000-07:00

Opinion Is Split On Continental Divide Trail -- Push To Finish 3, 100-Mile Path Stirs Up Old Territorial Disputes

Los Angeles Times
MONARCH PASS, Colo. - In return for a handful of beads, a pound of flour, an American flag and a vague promise of firearms, Shoshone Indians granted Lewis and Clark safe passage over the Continental Divide nearly 200 years ago.
Modern trailblazers should be so lucky.
A well-heeled alliance of hikers and outdoor-equipment manufacturers has returned to the country made famous by the 19th-century explorers, this time to build the nation's longest wilderness hiking trail - one stretching the length of the Continental Divide, from Canada to Mexico.
The vision of a 3,100-mile route through some of the West's most rugged and historic countryside has won the approval of Congress, prompted contributions from a dozen major corporations, inspired hundreds of volunteers to work on the trail and led towns to link up their parks and jogging paths with the trail.
But not everyone welcomes the project; it has become a lightning rod for a broader debate about the impact of recreation and tourism on rural communities and remote, wild country.
The route runs through five states, three national parks - Glacier, Yellowstone and Rocky Mountain - a dozen wilderness areas and a score of national forests.
But it also goes by 300-year-old villages whose defiant residents still identify with their Spanish pioneer ancestors, and through Indian reservations and ranches where there are strong suspicions that modern-day trails bring trouble - urban refugees, environmental zealots, cultural conflicts, land-use disputes and a higher cost of living.
"We try to tell people we are not leading a wagon train full of cappuccino machines and California expatriates," said one member of the Continental Divide Trail Alliance, the nonprofit group leading the campaign to complete the trail.
But it's difficult to win over people like Moises Morales, a county commissioner from one of the old Spanish settlements who has helped bring the project to a halt at the Colorado-New Mexico border. "The last thing we need," he said, "is a bunch of backpackers and tree huggers tramping through our yards."
Tracing the crest of the Rocky Mountains for much of its length, the Continental Divide gets its name because it is the demarcation separating the headwaters of streams flowing east and west.
The impetus for a hiking trail following the entire route - making it longer than either the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Crest Trail - came largely from two men.
The first champion, in the 1960s, was the late Benton MacKaye, a forester who decades earlier had suggested the idea of an official Appalachian Trail following the longest chain of mountains in the East.
He was succeeded by another devotee of the Appalachian Trail, Baltimore lawyer Jim Wolf, who set out to sell Congress on the idea of an even more spectacular route that would allow people to experience the American West as the pioneers did.
Congress endorsed creation of a Continental Divide Trail in 1978, but there was never enough money to get the job done. So there was only sporadic work on the project by the U.S. Forest Service, which began linking an extensive system of primitive logging roads and existing trails.
The government effort fell 1,000 miles short of completing the trail - setting the stage for the current push.
The trail is largely complete from the Canadian border south to the lower end of Yellowstone Park, and through virtually all of Colorado.
Hikers in Idaho can cross the same high passes used by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark during their 1804-1806 expedition to explore newly acquired Western territories.
In southern Wyoming, where the trail is not complete, its sponsors hope to track the wagon ruts of the old Oregon Trail for several miles.
In Colorado, it goes through ghost towns, past the sites of 19th-century forts and battlefields and over a 14,000-foot mountain. Hikers taking it through the San Juan Mountains don't cross a paved road for 146 miles. Farther north, it takes them down the main street of Grand Lake, Colo.
From snow-covered summits to waterless lowlands, the Divide can be a terror to traverse. During the summer, volunteers working on a section of the trail in northern Wyoming encountered many of the same hazards that 19th-century expeditions endured.
"Two mules temporarily lost. One washed downstream. One horseman kicked in the head. One camp torn up by a grizzly bear. One person unhappy with food, campsites, group leader, weather, etc.," surveyor Dick Inberg wrote in his notes of two weeks supervising trail work in the mountains south of Yellowstone Park.
Inberg's crew members were among more than 700 volunteers working this year to complete the job that was begun by the government, but which stalled by the early 1990s because of budget cuts and competing priorities.
The renewed enthusiasm to finish the trail is part of a surge of interest in outdoor recreation that is pumping new life and money into old mining and ranching communities up and down the Rockies.
Recognizing the benefits of high-profile public trails, the American Recreation Coalition, an industry trade group, began working with Bruce and Paula Ward - he was the president of the American Hiking Society, she a landscape architect. Headed by the couple, the 2-year-old Continental Divide Trail Alliance boasts an impressive list of business partners, including the Coleman Co., Vasque, REI, L.L. Bean, Walmart, Amgen and the Sporting Goods Manufacturing Association.
The alliance is counting on its corporate partners to pay at least one-third of the $10 million cost.
In return, sponsors will have their names engraved on trail heads and will be given the opportunity to mention the trail and their support on products and commercials. To fund the rest, the alliance is looking to foundations, environmental groups, individuals and the federal government.
Besides the physical work of clearing a trail where none exists and erecting signs and markers, the job involves acquiring easements across private property and trying to convince skeptical land owners and environmentalists that the project is worthwhile.
Meanwhile, some features of the trail have been the subject of continuing debate even among its sponsors - most notably the issue of motorized access by all-terrain vehicles, jeeps and snowmobiles.
Others worry that corporate sponsors will want to tame the trail, providing too much access and too many conveniences.
But it will require some doing to take the wilderness out of the trail. Passing through 12 official wilderness areas, where even mountain bikes are prohibited, the route runs through the last grizzly bear habitat in the lower 48 states and runs above timberline for many miles, exposing travelers to lightning and avalanches.

2008-01-21T19:24:00.000-08:00

The Amazon Outdoor Store

Fulfilling a lifelong dream Mallerys publish book on trek along the Continental Divide

By MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS-Traverse City Record Eagle

What does it take to walk 3,800 miles through some of North America's most rugged — and beautiful — country.

Click he re to visit mallerybooks.com

Wanderlust, tenacity and lots of family support, said Dick Mallery, co-author of the book "Crossing the Divide: A Family Adventure along the Continental Divide” (MalleryBooks, $18.95).Mallery, publisher and founder of the bird-feeding and nature newspaper The Dick E. Bird News, fulfilled a 30-year dream in 2003 by completing the Continental Divide Trail from New Mexico to Jasper, Alberta. Instead of leaving his family behind, he shared the adventure with wife Gaila and daughter Maggie, who followed in the front country in the family's 27-foot motor home towing a Saturn.

Dick Mallery heads back on the Continental Divide Trail after resupplying in Twin Lakes, Colo.,in 1999.

The family began their adventure in 1999, the year Mallery turned 50. That year, he walked 3,200 miles along the Continental Divide from New Mexico to the Canadian border — a trip that would take him through five states in five months. Gaila and Maggie, then 12, were his support team, driving the motor home to campgrounds paralleling his route and meeting him on his weekly exits from the trail for more supplies and a little R&R.A few years later, the family returned to where they left off for the next leg of the journey, a 30-day 600-mile hike of the Canadian Continental Divide from Waterton to Jaspar, Alberta.The Continental Divide Trail follows an imaginary line running along the peaks of the Rocky Mountains that divides the continent's principal drainage eastward or westward. Mallery, now 58, said the rugged trip was not designed to recapture his youth but rather to challenge himself, push his personal limits and achieve that lifelong dream."I knew that was on my list of things to do before I died,” he said, adding that his passion for trekking and backpacking was fueled by childhood camping trips out West in his family's 1957 Airstream. "I kind of wanted to do it while Maggie was still home so we could make a family adventure of it.”Hiking alone with a 26-pound pack, he traveled 25 to 30 miles a day over mountains, across deserts and through streams and valleys, contending with everything from weather extremes to blisters and leg cramps. But he said one of the biggest challenges was water — locating enough to drink on the first trip and finding ways to bridge it on the second."There were a couple hairy times in the Canadian Rockies where I just couldn't cross,” he said. "The river was just 30 feet across, but so powerful it would knock you over.”Another problem was navigation, he said. Although the trail is considered the "king of trails,” it was only 60 percent complete at the time — and finding maps for it wasn't easy."I was lost a lot, especially in New Mexico,” despite such aids as then-unsophisticated versions of the GPS, the satellite communicator and the cell phone, he said. "I'd just go north and stay on the Divide as much as I could.”For their part, Gaila and Maggie restocked Mallery's supplies — strawberry milkshakes and pizza for off the trail, dehydrated beans and Ritz Bits for on it — and scouted campgrounds with hot showers, his first request after emerging from the trail. They also kept the business going with the help of a laptop computer, even passing out sample issues of the newspaper everywhere from bakeries and libraries to campgrounds and parks. (To prepare for the trip, the family scaled back the publication to a bi-monthly, printed three issues in advance and asked Mallery's father to deliver them to the post office one issue at a time.)The trip was a bonding experience for Gaila, whose parents from Arizona accompanied her and Maggie for much of the way."We became so close,” she said. "It was something that I'll never forget. I think families that travel together, there's just that bond there. And it's really good for children. We have this tradition: We play (the card game) Skip-Bo and have hot chocolate at night. We don't do that at home. I didn't want to come back. It was like, 'I don't want this to end.'"As far as exciting and fun adventures, I think it was going into these little towns that we never would have found otherwise and meeting the people.” Special among them were store owners who extended credit when they didn't take credit cards and librarians who let Maggie check out library books and drop them off at the next community library, she said.The couple recount their adventure from alternating perspectives in the book, which is available online at Amazon.com and at mallerybooks.com. Part of their story is the strangers they met along the way, from hikers to the occasional odd character like Bob Sundown, who traveled from New Mexico to Arizona every spring with his chickens and dog in a mule-drawn covered wagon, and James Cotton, a writer penning the encyclopedic volume of the word "free.”Mallery said he's glad he got the chance to hike on the Divide while there is still some wilderness left. His next goal is a 1,000-mile trek from Jasper to the Yukon, through even more remote and wild areas."I just love doing long-distance hikes. I'm after the solitude,” he said. "I like to get up in the mountains. To me it's magical, to me it's rare.”Meanwhile, he said he hopes the book encourages others to follow their own adventures."I guess the impact it had on me is just that life is short and if you want to do something, you should do it now,” he said.

CDT Southern Terminus Project

2008-01-14T10:56:00.001-08:00

For years the southern end of the cdt has been a crap shoot. Hikers leaving and arriving have used a shotgun pattern of routes from Silver City to the border and from the border to Silver City. That is all changing. A lot of good trail now exists in the bootheel and beyond. The CDTA is interested in what you would like to see at the CDT Southern Terminus. The PCT has a nice monument. But this is the King of Trails. I think our neighbor Drummond Hadley, heir to Anhesier Busch should build a cantina and stock it with beer. It seems like the neighborly thing to do. Let the CDTA know what you think!

CDT Southern Terminus Project
What would you like to see at the southern end of the CDT?
The Continental Divide Trail Alliance is designing the site for the Southern Terminus for the CDNST at the New Mexico – Mexico border in cooperation with our agency partners (BLM, USFS, NPS). The Northern Terminus for the CDNST, located in Glacier Waterton International Peace Park on the Canada – Montana border is marked with a single concrete pillar. In designing the landmark for the Southern Terminus, we are providing an opportunity for our many important stakeholders who may have thoughts or ideas about this site to be involved in this process.
Provide your input as CDTA and the federal land managers work together to design the Southern Terminus of the Continental Divide Trail. By involving key stakeholders, volunteers and Trail supporters in this effort, we hope to create a fitting symbol for this national treasure and for the epic journey it represents. All work is slated for completion by the end of 2008.
Take the brief Southern Terminus Project survey here.
Please complete this survey by January 21st, 2008 so we can start the design and construction phases of this project. Please forward this survey to others who may be interested.

CONTINENTAL DIVIDE TRAIL/Idaho, Montana Guide

2008-01-06T18:39:00.000-08:00

When I was gathering information in 1998 preparing to hike the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail, there was little to be had. I bought a couple of Jim Wolf’s guide books, DeLorme Atlas & Gazetteer Series did not even have a New Mexico edition until a couple months before my departure date. I had two boxes of assorted route information I collected. CDT guide books were just beginning to show up on the horizon. Lynna Howard was kind enough to send me a proof copy of her up and coming Montana/Idaho CDT guidebook. It was of great value to me once I left Yellowstone. It is still a great resource. You can find this guide and Lynna’s other writings at: http://myweb.cableone.net/prueheart/

Continental Divide Trail Fires

2008-01-03T16:41:00.000-08:00

Fires have been the biggest obstacle in finishing the CDT in one season in recent years.

Wildfires topped the news for northern Flathead County in 2007, and by the end of the fire season about a dozen fires has burned timber in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. The Chippy Creek fire was the largest in the state and burned nearly 100,000 acres. The Ahorn and Fool Creek fires burned a swath through a combined 110,000 acres of forest land. The Skyland Fire, south of Marias Pass, spent some time rated as the top priority in the nation after it went from a few hundred acres to more than 16,000 acres is about a week.

(More Continental Divide Trail Info)

CONTINENTAL DIVIDE TRAIL / CUBA, NEW MEXICO

2008-01-02T17:48:00.000-08:00

This delicious looking breakfast is what I had as I left Cuba and headed up into the San Pedro. It was a great breakfast but the worst case of food poison I have ever experienced.

Thoughts on Cuba
From: Crossing the Divide

I hiked into Cuba, New Mexico, on a Saturday evening. It was a town of impoverished appearance. I was greeted by a group of zombie-glazed men—vacant eyes, tough wrinkled skin, tattered clothing, addicted to the hopelessness of life around them. I walked through town, surveying the opportunities to eat and sleep here for a night. I reached the northern city limits, crossed the road and walked back south, hoping I had missed something, knowing I had not.The walk from Grants had been five days with few opportunities for water. My legs were very tired, and I desperately wanted to soak in a tub of hot water and scrub the desert out of my skin. I bought a room in a dingy ’50s-era motel with a three-quarter-length tub. Filled with water as hot as I could stand, I folded my body into the shallow basin and soaked for over an hour. I would wash my clothes in this same tub but first I wanted a meal. I carried only the clothing I wore. Now that my body and my senses were cleansed, my sweat-soaked clothing had the appeal of rotted garbage. But the urge to eat a hot meal lured me into them and down the street to a small cafe. I slipped into a corner table of a mom-and-pop pizzeria under the watchful eyes of the owners. I knew what they were looking at. It was the gaunt, sun-baked, hollow-looking character I had just seen minutes earlier in the mirror in my room. I answered their questioning eyes with my story. “I’m a thru-hiker. I’m headed for Canada. I look bad and I smell bad, but I feel good.” That brought a smile to their faces. They opened up completely to my adventure. It tore down all barriers between our curiosities. In the short time it takes to enjoy a large pizza with four items, we shared each other’s life stories and were the spontaneous kind of friends that assume from introduction that we will probably never meet again but cherish the moment of fellowship at hand.
(More CDT News and Info)

CONTINENTAL DIVIDE TRAIL NEWS

2008-01-01T10:01:00.000-08:00

Playing ‘save the toes’
by Tom Sherlin

Long distance hiker Bert Emmerson is home in Maryville recovering from frostbite. He survived being stranded in a snowstorm for days in frigid temperatures while hiking the Continental Divide Trail earlier this month.

By Rick Laneyof The Daily Times Staff
Bert Emmerson is back home after being stranded in the Gila Wilderness Area of New Mexico above 10,000 feet during a four-day snowstorm.
Since arriving back in Maryville shortly before Christmas, he has been to hospitals and doctors’ offices regularly. Although Emmerson’s feet were badly frostbitten during the incident, he believes he will keep his toes.
Emmerson is calm and reflective as he describes his ordeal — a common characteristic of long-distance hikers who sometimes spend months alone on the trail. He is even casual as he pulls back his socks to reveal his ravaged feet that look more like they lost a battle with a lawn mower than the victims of frigid temperatures.
“I’m playing ‘save the toes’ right now,” Emmerson said. “It looks like I’ll get to keep them.
“It’s really amazing how much better they are now. The first night was very painful — like a severe burn.”
Until a few weeks ago, Emmerson was hiking the Continental Divide Trail, a 2,567-mile trail from Canada to Mexico that stretches through Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. He started his journey at Glacier National Park in Montana on June 15 and has been hiking ever since. His plan was to reach the Mexico border and be home with his wife, Becky Emmerson, by Christmas.

(More Backpacking News)

CONTINENTAL DIVIDE TRAIL FACES MORE THAN JUST THE THREAT OF MOUNTAIN BIKES

2007-12-30T18:53:00.000-08:00

The article below shows how politics erode Wilderness Protection as much as the physical presence of mountain bikes and motorized vehicles. Lately the mountain bike issue on the CDT enjoyed a large sympathy vote from many CDT hikers because so many hikers are also bikers. Lobby’s are cropping up all over the wilderness landscape and threaten to change the face and the personality of Wilderness Protection. Like so many environmental issues it is a silent invasion that creeps in like a virus. It destroys precious resources over generations of time so that what is lost has never been known to those who have lost it. —Dick Mallery

DURANGO, Colo. — In the San Juan National Forest here, an iron-rod gate is the last barrier to the Weminuche Wilderness, a mountain redoubt above 10,000 feet where wheels are not allowed.
But the gate has been knocked down repeatedly, shot at and generally disregarded. Miles beyond it, a two-track trail has been punched into the wilderness by errant all-terrain-vehicle riders who have insisted on going their own way, on-trail or off.
From Colorado's forests to Utah's sandstone canyons and the evergreen mountains of Montana, federally owned lands are rapidly being transformed into the new playgrounds — and battlegrounds — of the American West.
Outdoor enthusiasts are flocking in record numbers to lesser-known forests, deserts and mountains, where the rules of use have been lax and enforcement infrequent.
The federal government has been struggling to come up with plans to accommodate the growing numbers of off-highway vehicles — mostly with proposed maps directing them toward designated trails — but all-terrain-vehicle users have started formidable lobbying campaigns when favorite trails have been left off the maps.
Even with the plans, federal officials describe an almost impossible enforcement situation because the government does not begin to have the manpower to deal with those who will not follow the rules. To keep the lawbreakers in check, said Don Banks, the deputy state director in Salt Lake City for the federal Bureau of Land Management, the biggest landowner in states like Utah and Nevada, "You'd have to have Patton's army."

The growing allure of the federal lands coincides with marked changes in how people play, with outdoor recreation now a multibillion-dollar industry. It also comes at a time, according to data compiled by Volker C. Radeloff of the University of Wisconsin, when more than 28 million homes sit less than 30 miles from federally owned land that millions of people increasingly view as their extended back yards.
"Forty years ago when I was out cowboying, I never saw a soul," said Heidi Redd, who operates the Dugout Ranch near Canyonlands National Park in southeastern Utah. "Now it's at a point where you realize the public land is not yours, you're just one of the users. And whether it's ATVs, horses or climbers, it's a traffic jam."
Any user can contribute to the traffic jam, but the off-highway vehicles do damage disproportionate to their numbers. In addition to loud engines, they have soft tires and deep treads that bite more deeply than a foot or a hoof. When they go off-trail, consequences often follow: erosion, destruction of fragile desert soils or historical artifacts and disturbance of wildlife habitats.
The temptation to go off-trail, legally or not, comes from the desire for variety, federal land managers say. "The more a route is used, the less challenging it becomes," said Mark Stiles, the San Juan forest supervisor. "You end up getting lots of little spurs off the main route." Even a few errant riders, he said, "can do a lot of damage."
Visitor numbers soar
The federal government does a spotty job counting the visitors to public lands — most do not have traditional visitors centers or staffed entry gates — but recent estimates by federal land managers in Utah signal the trend.
About 2.7 million people participated in outdoor activities on federal lands near Arches National Park so far this year, roughly double the estimates for 2000. And the number of participants in off-highway vehicle trips grew twice as fast as those in other activities, including things like rafting and sightseeing.
This explosive growth — coming at a time when attendance at many of the country's prized national parks has been below historic highs — has reignited the debate over just what should be done with the country's public lands.
In eastern Utah, six offices of the federal land management agency recently released proposed land-use plans that, among other things, cover recreational uses and the closing of areas to all-terrain vehicles. The proposals have drawn fierce reactions.
Campaigns to save popular trails have cropped up on the Internet. "Help us Save Factory Butte," says one appeal, in reference to a rock formation, a favorite area for daring motorcyclists and ATV riders that was closed on an emergency basis last year to protect cactuses. Another appeal says that a proposal to fence off cottonwood trees at White Wash Dunes near Moab, a popular playground for all-terrain vehicles, "must be opposed, en masse, by the off-highway community."
On the other side, opponents of the trails have been alarmed that the proposed networks of authorized paths would permanently eliminate large areas of Utah's unroaded wild lands from consideration as federally protected wilderness areas.
Members of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, an environmental group that wants greater restrictions placed on motorized users, have tallied the total miles of motorized trails that would be allowed (about 15,000 miles) and the number of currently roadless acres that would no longer be eligible for federal wilderness protections (more than 2.5 million acres).
Lawyers for the group estimate that 82 percent of the lands in Utah that the Bureau of Land Management said had wilderness character in 1999 are now open for energy, mining or motorized recreation.
"Everybody's losing something they thought they had," said Clifton Koontz, an avid dirt-motorbike rider and co-founder of Ride With Respect, a group that teaches people about the bikes and how to minimize damage to the environment.
A balancing act
The preservation movement that coalesced around John Muir in the late 19th century focused on setting aside public lands, first as parks, then wildlife refuges, then after passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act, as wilderness areas "untrammeled by man."
But by the 1990s, federal designations were increasingly disputed by the mining and energy industries. Groups representing makers and riders of off-highway vehicles also had objections, casting the suggested wilderness designations as hostile acts designed to strip riders of their rights.
"They want everybody out," said Russ Englund, who owns a motorcycle shop outside the Bitterroot National Forest, which straddles the Montana-Idaho border and is one of the many flash points. "They think it has to be kept in this pristine state. These people don't even use it."
Riders of all varieties complain that their critics are off the mark, that motorized sports are about more than a handful of renegades. They say the activities are enjoyed in large part by law-abiding families and that the motorized vehicles allow older people and the infirm to visit beautiful and remote places otherwise inaccessible to them.
"I don't like being looked at as a bad guy all the time," said Bob Turri, 79, who likes to ride his all-terrain vehicle near his home in Monticello in southeastern Utah.
On a recent trip to Hidden Canyon, 20 miles from Moab and two miles from the nearest paved road, Koontz of Ride With Respect said it was possible to design trails that separated the machines from the wildlife.
Bighorn sheep sometimes visit Hidden Canyon, and Koontz pointed to the faint sheep tracks crossing the imprint of tires.
"You build the trails below the ridgelines," he said, explaining that sheep, when startled, are more comfortable heading up to ridges rather than down into canyons, and therefore would naturally stay away from the riders.
But federal managers say the outlaw fringe of motor-vehicle users is driving the need for more regulation. While sales of all-terrain vehicles have dipped slightly since 2004, the slippage comes after astronomical growth. Registrations of all-terrain vehicles and motorbikes in Utah, California, Colorado and Idaho tripled from 1998 to 2006; in Riverside County, east of Los Angeles and a couple hours drive from the popular Algodones Dunes, registrations went up fourfold. In Wyoming, the registration increases were starker: up fivefold, to 45,000, from 2002 to 2006.
Many motorized users say wealthy homeowners are selfish, pushing for restrictions to preserve postcard views. So-called quiet users, those who do not use motorcycles or all-terrain vehicles, often portray those riders as reckless people in their 20s who seek out meadows simply to shred them.
Not so black and white
In truth, there are some young thrill-seekers and wealthy armchair environmentalists, but the demographics on both sides are complicated.
Many all-terrain-vehicle riders take their grandchildren with them and go fishing. In Utah, where in some rural counties there is one off-highway vehicle for every three or four people, 8-year-olds ride scaled-down versions and older people use them for Sunday outings.
Many quiet users, meanwhile, are not rich newcomers but longtime locals who spent their lives in the forest. One of them, Tom Powers, a backcountry hunter in Montana who first hunted elk in the Bitterroot as a young man in 1969, still takes his horse into the woods, but less than before, to avoid the summertime traffic of motorcycles, pickups and all-terrain vehicles.
"They've ruined what used to be a quality experience in the backcountry, where you were just up there with nature," Powers said.
The list of complaints is long and varied.
Though some hunters enjoy all-terrain vehicles, others complain that hunters using them get so close that their engines spook the game.
"There are so many of these machines," said Dave Petersen, a bow hunter who monitors public lands issues in Durango for the environmental group Trout Unlimited. "It's made our big public lands much smaller, for the wildlife and for us."
Environmentalists worry about the destruction of fragile soils and erosion, when outsize Western rainfalls course through the ruts left by hill-climbing all-terrain vehicles. There are also concerns for streams, rivers and wetlands, precious resources in the arid West and magnets for those who think all-terrain-vehicle riding is best when muddy. "They wouldn't do this in their back yard," said Liz Thomas, a lawyer for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. "But it's not their back yard."
Trespassing is another problem. Since most land used for outdoor recreation is publicly owned, some riders and hikers pay little heed to "No Trespassing" signs on property that abuts popular federal lands. The hikers are not hard to identify and prosecute, but the all-terrain-vehicle riders can be. A Colorado man, Joe Jepson, ordered two riders off his land last year. One ran him down, breaking his leg. The riders were never identified.
Perhaps the biggest damage to the sport's reputation has come from mass holiday gatherings that have turned ugly or dangerous on public lands like Algodones Dunes in California, a favorite spot at New Year's. Last Easter weekend at the Little Sahara sand dunes in Utah — a popular spring-break getaway like Florida's beaches — there was a near-riot, with, among other things, drunken riders forcing women to expose their breasts. ATV fans argue that drunken rowdies are not unique to any particular group.
"We have two groups, one that wants to be quiet and then one that wants to have motorized use," said Mary Laws, the recreation program manager for Bitterroot National Forest. "They both want to be in the forest, so we get the great task of coming up somewhere in the middle."

MORE BACKPACKING AND HIKING NEWS AT: thenewspaperthatwalks.com

Continental Divide Trail Getting Close to Completion

2007-12-29T20:19:00.000-08:00

By Carl Benjamin

It is not Mt. Everest but, the Continental Divide Trail will soon be covered with hikers and backpackers. Since 1978, the trail has been being prepared for the day that individuals can navigate the 3100 mile trail.
The beginning actually goes back to 1966, when the idea of a trail was first talked about. Then in 1968, Congress had the National Trails System Act passed to study the feasibility of completing a trail. In 1973, Jim Wolf walked the Divide from Canada to Rogers Pass, Montana. He did a guidebook for that area. Then in 1978, Wolf started the Continental divide society. A profit group to raise funds for guidebooks about the trail. The main vision for the CDT was to establish a trail that not only brought physical and mental challenges for hikers but, also an appreciation for some of the best scenery in the Rocky Mountains.
Each year some sort of construction has been going on to open up certain sections of the trail for outdoor enthusiasts. This past spring a 41 mile section opened in Wyoming. In 2009 a 60 mile section will blaze through Colorado. Once it is completed it will go through some of the rugged terrain in America. There are many other trails in the US. Two that come to mind is the Pacific Crest Trail and the Appalachian Trail. There are also smaller trails too like the Katy Trail in Missouri and the Great Mississippi River Road Trail. However, these will be dwarfs when compared to the CDT. The CDT has been called the "backbone of America."
The CDT is tough enough to leave memories that will have backpackers and hikers boasting of their exploits the rest of their life. The stretch in Montana is especially grueling. In Glacier National Park, individuals will cross snow bridges in mid June only to reach 90 degree cow pastures a week later. As you hike, your major concerns will shift to survival. Will you make the next ridge by nightfall? Where will you find water? Where is the safest place to camp? What type of critters lurk in my path? These questions and more will more than challenge anyones character.An experience hiker can cover the entire trail in about 145 days, the novice 180 to 200 days. Like Everest, it will be a challenge because it is there. Records will be set in the early stages and broken within a year. Despite all of this, the one thing that will stand out more than anything is the spectacular views that an individual will encounter. This past year saw only about 35 complete the journey. That is going to grow quickly.
There are even specials set up for the different seasons. One for the fall season is now being done at different locations throughout the four States that the trail goes through.
If you decide to tackle this trail before it is finished, topo maps can be obtained at the CDT website (http://www.cdtrail.org/) . The website is also looking for volunteers to work and get involved in the construction of the trail. That alone would be something to leave behind in your family tree. They are looking for people from all walks of life to help in putting this trail together. The site lists the days you would be involved and the degree of difficulty involved in the work needed to be done.
Once you have registered, you will be notified in about 6 to 8 weeks on your status. If you decide to volunteer, make sure that you set aside dates on your calender and be flexible enough to be able to help out. Keep in mind, that this isn't for everyone. An individual needs to have a positive attitude and is in pretty good physical condition. Volunteer ages vary from 10 years in age to Senior Citizens. There is even opportunities for different groups to work together on projects throughout the trail.
Even though the trail isn't finished yet, there are many places to hike and backpack. If you are up to the challenge of a lifetime, you can actually discover what it was like to be a Mountain Man. If you want to be a part of the construction of this soon to be gem of America, then checkout their website.

http://thenewspaperthatwalks.com/

CONTINENTAL DIVIDE NATIONAL SCENIC TRAIL/One of the Big Three

2007-12-28T20:24:00.000-08:00

Photo: Walkin' Jim

A number of major hiking trails are scattered throughout the United States.
The Appalachian Trail is 2,144 miles, running from Springer Mountain, Ga., to Maine's highest peak, Mt. Katahdin. It crosses 14 states. The trail is used by an estimated 4 million people a year, but only about 175 hikers complete the five- to seven-month journey annually.
The longest major trail is the Continental Divide. It follows what is referred to as the backbone of the U.S. The 3,200-mile trail begins at Antelope Wells, N.M., along the Mexican border and concludes with a spectacular hike through the heart of Glacier National Park at the Montana/Canadian border. Following the trail across Colorado takes hikers over 22 peaks that exceed 14,000 feet. With the extreme altitude changes, this rugged trail is not for the faint of heart.
Ranking third is Pacific Crest. Being the counterpart of the east's Appalachian Trail, it wanders about 2,650 miles along the shoulders of the beautiful Cascade and Sierra Nevada Mountains. The three states bordering the Pacific Ocean offer spectacular scenery.

http://thenewspaperthatwalks.com/

Continental Divide Trail/Rawlins, Wyo. Area

2007-12-27T19:04:00.000-08:00

Generous Wyoming Easement Furthers Continental Divide Trail Completion Efforts

By Dick Todd and Gary Long

On May 31st 2007 representatives from Congress and the Wyoming State Legislature; the City of Rawlins, Wyoming; the Bureau of Land Management; the U. S. Forest Service; the Anadarko Land Corporation; the Continental Divide Trail Alliance; and the Wind River Back Country Horsemen; as well as members of the general public joined together at a location on the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail to celebrate the granting of a public easement by Anadarko Land Corporation across nineteen miles of its private land along the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail. Nearly one hundred people attended the dedication ceremony. The Bureau of Land Management will hold and manage the easement in the Great Divide Basin region of Wyoming.In the Rawlins area the Continental Divide Trail crosses an area known as the Checkerboard, where every other square mile of land in a checkerboard pattern is in private ownership. This land ownership pattern is a result of the land grants given by the Federal government in the 1860s to encourage and assist the Union Pacific Railroad in construction of the first transcontinental railroad. The area is about forty miles wide so to cross it with a legal right-of-way, about twenty miles of easement are required. Anadarko’s donated trail easement preserves legal public access over approximately 18.85 miles of Anadarko property for the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail, which opens up 40 miles of continuous legal access along the route of the Trail.The importance of this acquisition is more about the accomplishments of private/public partnerships than the actual easement itself. This wasn’t simply a matter of the BLM going out and purchasing an easement. As always, the story is much more complicated.This was not simply a negotiating process between the BLM and the Anadarko Land Corporation, the owner of the land through which the trail would pass. The participants included the Continental Divide Trail Alliance, the Wyoming State Legislature, BLM, and Anadarko. Volunteers from the Back Country Horsemen played a role as did the Wyoming Congressional Delegation. It’s important to realize that the easement wouldn’t have happened if the forces listed above hadn’t joined together to make it happen.During the Dedication Ceremony Rebecca Watson, Chair of the Continental Divide Trail Alliance, praised this cooperative effort: “Today we celebrate the generous contribution to the work of the Trail of a new partner, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation. Anadarko has donated the largest easement ever given in the history of the Trail. Acquisition of private land easements is one of the most difficult challenges to the completion of this great Trail, and we could not do it without partners like Anadarko.” Constrained by ill health and so unable to attend the ceremony, a staffer for Senator Craig Thomas (R-WY) read a statement in which the now late senator praised Anadarko, the BLM and the CDTA for their efforts, noting, “In a state where we highly value public lands and access to them, this dedication is a true celebration of the ability of many in the private and public sectors to come together in partnership.”In his remarks, James Kleckner, Anadarko’s Vice-President of Operations mentioned his family’s experience with helping to build the Colorado Trail and emphasized Anadarko’s commitment to giving back. Dave Hunsaker, Deputy Director of the National Landscape Conservation System, and Robert Bennett, Wyoming State Director reaffirmed the commitment of the BLM to seek other recreation easements in their efforts to complete the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail.
Dick Todd is a Senior Realty Specialist for the Bureau of Land Management.Gary Long is Outdoor Recreation Planner in the Wyoming State Office, Bureau of Land Management.

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Continental Divide Trail/Guinness Mirage

2007-12-23T18:00:00.000-08:00

By SCOTT McMILLION

Jim Horan saw a startling thing. Rounding a corner on a trail in Glacier National Park, he saw a vision: a Guinness beer standing in the middle of a bridge, all by itself.
“It stopped me in my tracks,” he said. “Like seeing a grizzly bear.”
Horan's thirst is understandable. He was on the last leg of a 2,500 mile, five-month hike from the Mexican border to the Canadian border, all of it along the Continental Divide.
His adventure was coming to an end and he'd been having reveries involving good beer and the Lazy Boy recliner in his Livingston home. And then one of those dreams came true, courtesy of his friend Norman Miller, who'd placed the beer on the bridge and hidden himself, waiting to see Horan's reaction.
Miller had more beers with him and when he emerged from hiding, the friends had a laugh and drank them all, celebrating on the trail.
Horan had a lot to celebrate. Hiking the Continental Divide Trail is an incredible undertaking, one attempted by many and accomplished by few.
The route led him through alpine blizzards, incredible thunderstorms, sparse deserts and more than a few dicey crossings of busy highways.
“Sometimes, the most dangerous part of the hike was getting across roads -- trying to run across four lanes of traffic when everyone's trying to pass each other,” Horan said.
There were other adventures.
One time, postholing through deep snow on a high ridge in Colorado, the kind of hike where you need an ice axe, a storm blew through with winds strong enough to knock him down.
Later, along the Montana-Idaho border, fierce lightning came down so fast and frequent he could have read a book in the near-constant glow. So Horan and his companions skedaddled down into some timber.
“But the wind was blowing over trees all around us,” he said.
So they hunkered down and suffered out the storm, which was their only option.
For most of the hike, Horan traveled with a friend, Colorado resident Mark Dixon. But Dixon had to return to his U.S. Forest Service job before the trip was complete, so Horan, a book distributor, soloed the final miles through the Bob Marshall Wilderness and Glacier Park, where grizzly bears left steaming reminders of their presence along the brush-choked trails.
And then there was the drudgery. The trail is a national scenic trail, designated as such in 1978 by the federal government. But about a third of it remains “undesignated,” said trail administrator Greg Warren. That means hikers must rely on their own devices to plan routes.
“Lots of it is unmarked,” Horan said, although maps can be downloaded from the Internet and overlaid with Forest Service maps.
No routes stick to the divide every foot of the way. But all of them require you to cross it dozens of times.
Just preparing for the hike is a lot of work. The two men bought, loaded and shipped 35 boxes of food to post offices along the route. They had to arrange for long absences from home and work. And they had to keep themselves motivated to keep moving.
“It's not just the physical skills,” said Josh Shusko, spokesman for the Continental Divide Trail Alliance, a Colorado-based group. “You also need navigational skills and the mental attitude.”
Horan said he and Dixon were on the trail most mornings by 7:15 a.m. and generally covered 20 to 25 miles a day, slowing only when laid up by illness or injury, which came in the form of shin splints, intestinal distress and blisters. Only about once a month did they take a full day off.
Although he ate steadily - lots of noodles, pop tarts, sausage, tortillas and tuna, and all the beer and ice cream he could find - Horan said he was hungry all the time and lost about 25 pounds from his 191 pound frame,.
Hardships came, but so did pleasures, in the form of seeing new country under his own steam, arriving at previously hidden caches of tequila and beer, and meeting new people, both on the trail and in the small towns they hiked into every few days.
While hiking across the Great Divide Basin near Rawlins, Wyo., Horan and Dixon met a particularly friendly couple traveling the area in a van. Every night, the couple showed up at a prearranged campsite with cold drinks, watermelon and a sunshade in that parched and empty section of the Cowboy State.
“It was like it was catered,” Horan said. “We loved it.”
The occasional town usually meant a hot shower, a place to do laundry and restaurants to break the food monotony.
Ironically, when Horan checked into motels every few days, he often found himself unable to sleep well. After weeks on the trail, the town noises were too distracting and he found himself eager to go.
“We were always jonesing to get back on the trail,” he said.
Horan is no stranger to mega hikes. He hiked 650 miles spanning Arizona from south to north, including part of the Grand Canyon, and took on the East Coast Trail in Newfoundland, in the sodden month of November.
The Canadians thought he was a little kooky, he said.
In 1998, he and Dixon completed the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail, tracing a different route from the Mexican border to Canada. And he's got his eye on the 2,175-mile Appalachian Trail, which would make him one of only a few dozen people to complete the “Triple Crown” of distance hiking.
“I'm 45,” he said. “There's time.”

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Mustangs Patrol U.S.-Canada Border

2007-12-22T20:41:00.000-08:00

Descendants of the same horses that carried soldiers, prospectors, Plains Indians and Spanish conquistadors are now deployed by the federal government to help patrol the most rugged reaches of the northern border.

When I finished the CDT in the fall of 1999 there was not a lot of border patrol activity on the northern border with Canada as there seemed to be on the southern border with Mexico. Hiking across the bootheel of New Mexico and north to Silver City the border patrol fly low overhead three or four times to check me out. Finishing the trek my concern was that the Canadian border patrol might take my forty-five dollar canister of bear spray. They did confiscate our mace coming out of Alaska. We had it on a shelf in our trailer. Customs came in and said we had to "abandon it to the Crown." I didn’t want to abandon my bear spray to the Crown so I stuffed it in the bottom of my pack at Goat Haunt for the last nine miles to Waterton. My wife brought the boat down the lake from Waterton to meet me at Goat Haunt and hike the last nine miles and cross the border with me. An hour up the trail we noticed a big, fresh, steamy pile of berry flavored bear scat in the trail. My wife said, "Where is your bear spray?" I said, "I have it hidden in my pack." She just shook her head. We didn’t see bears or border patrol. That has all changed since 9/11. Starting or finishing your CDT adventure today you can expect to see a presence at the borderAstride sturdy mustangs named "Okanogan" and "Spurs," U.S. Border Patrol agents Darrel Williams and Justin Hefker ride quietly along a trail in Montana’s Glacier National Park along the Continental Divide.The mustangs are among a dozen the Border Patrol’s Spokane Sector has bought to patrol a 308-mile-long section of the U.S.-Canadian border from the crest of the Cascade Range in Washington state to the Continental Divide in Montana."The reason we went with the horses was to get into those hard-to-reach areas," said the patrol’s assistant chief of the region, Agent Lee Pinkerton. "We can really reach out to some of these remote locations."The Border Patrol, a division of the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection, routinely uses horses on the southern border with Mexico. But the mustangs owned by the patrol’s Spokane Sector are the first to watch the northern border, said Pinkerton.The Border Patrol’s "Operation Noble Mustang" adopts horses from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s wild horse and burro program, blending today’s technology with yesterday’s law enforcement traditions, the agency said.The breed’s big bones and large hoofs give them a sure-footedness that makes them a perfect fit for scaling the steep hillsides and thick forests along the border, Graham said. They also have less of an impact on the fragile wilderness ground than motorized vehicles, he said."These horses are truly American. They are a product that’s unique to the United States and we are putting them in a position to help us protect the U.S.," Pinkerton said. "There’s something inherently right in doing that."The mustangs were rounded up in the BLM wild horse adoption program, broken by inmate wranglers at a Colorado prison, then sent to the Border Patrol’s Colville station in Washington state for final training.Along the Spokane sector, agents also patrol the smaller Salmo-Priest wilderness of northeastern Washington state, as well as Montana’s Glacier National Park, where it abuts Canada’s Waterton Lakes National Park.Graham’s station has four mustangs, as well as three mules and a handful of horses leased from local ranches for use on their patrols. Others are assigned to stations in Metaline Falls and Curlew in Washington state, as well as Whitefish, Mont.Law enforcement aircraft have limited use in the wild, Pinkerton said. It is difficult to see people hiding beneath the tree canopy and wilderness laws limit how low aircraft can fly, he said.
"We’re going back to the 1800s style of doing this because it is successful," he said. "On the ground, a horse is going to be the best mode of transportation in those areas."

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Continental Divide Trail--Hiker's Close Call

2007-12-21T05:54:00.000-08:00

Bert Emmerson is trying to bag hiking’s Triple Crown, which includes the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail.

By Rick Laney

Bert Emmerson is a serious hiker. The 59-year-old Maryville resident is chasing hiking’s “Triple Crown,” which includes the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail. With more than 7,000 miles logged and two of the three trails finished, Emmerson is less than 200 miles from achieving his goal — but his plans were put on hold this week in a remote area of southwest New Mexico.On Monday afternoon, Emmerson knocked on the door of a complete stranger in Gila, N.M., and asked for help. His lips were black, and he couldn’t feel his hands. The toes on both of his feet were frostbitten, and he was running low on food after being caught above 10,000 feet in a four-day snowstorm. Temperatures were 10- to 20-degrees below zero and, as he tried to hike, the snow was nearly to his waist.“It started snowing on Saturday, Dec. 8, and continued for the next four days,” Emmerson said during a telephone interview from New Mexico. “I’m 5 feet 10 inches tall, and it got to where the tips of my mittens were dragging in the snow while I was walking.“When my toes started to get numb, I got in my tent and crawled into my sleeping bag. My socks were frozen to my toes, and I knew I was in big trouble.“The next morning, my toes were black — so I tried to follow a route down through the Gila Wilderness Area to a road that I planned to hike out on.”The Continental DivideThe route Emmerson was taking on the Continental Divide Trail is 2,567 miles long and stretches through Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico.Emmerson started his journey at Glacier National Park on June 15 and has been hiking ever since. His plan was to reach the Mexico border and be home with his wife, Becky Emmerson, by Christmas.The Continental Divide Trail climbs and descends the peaks of the Rocky Mountains from Canada to Mexico, traversing mountainside meadows, granite peaks and high-desert saddles. Through five states, 25 National Forests, 20 Wilderness areas, three National Parks, one National Monument and eight Bureau of Land Management Resource areas, the trail travels along the “backbone of America” through dramatic and wild backcountry.Although he started his trek with a small group of other hikers, Emmerson had been hiking solo since he left the trail for a while at the beginning of September to attend his son’s wedding in New Hampshire.“I had resupplied in Pie Town, N.M., on Dec. 3 and had about one week’s worth of food with me,” Emmerson said. “I had planned to make it to a place called Doc Campbell’s in about nine days but, when it started snowing, I decided to do a road walk rather than risk getting lost on the trail. “The road was 39 miles straight to the west — and as I walked, the snow just kept getting deeper and deeper.“By the time I made it to the house in Gila, I had been out for two entire weeks.”Back home in Maryville, Becky Emmerson was hours away from asking the New Mexico Police to launch a full-scale search and rescue mission.
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Continental Divide Trail/Red Desert--Great Basin

2007-12-20T19:29:00.000-08:00

As it turned out, the dragon was fairly tame. I had given much more thought to the Great Basin than was necessary. I left Wamsutter, Wyoming, with two gallons of water and my purifier. I made the crossing in three days and found plenty of water along the way. My original plan was to head straight north from Wamsutter until I reached a junction with the official CDT route and follow the trail west to Atlantic City. An hour after I left Wamsutter, I was still considering other options. According to my map, the Hay Reservoir was off to the northwest which held the promise of water and a much more direct route to Atlantic and South Pass City. Shortcuts do not always work out the way you plan them. I considered the Donner Party and their peril as they took the shortcut through the Sierras in the 1800s—one good reason not to deviate from my original plan worked out with the Bureau of Land Management staff. But in this case, my original plan had no more merit than any other cockamamie idea I could come up with. I decided to take the shortest route to the Sweetwater River, the only water source I knew I could rely on.
Because of gas exploration and development in the lower Basin, there are roads going in every direction. Even here in this remote and barren moonscape, the Earth seems in chaos, dealing with the constant onslaught of man. When in doubt which road to take, I pulled out my GPS and cut across the sagebrush until I junctioned with a road that seemed to be going in the same direction that I was. Even though I had not seen a rattlesnake in over two months of hiking, I kept thinking about my breakfast tutor and looking for serpents on top of each of the million plants I brushed.
The second morning, I found a flowing well at Lost Creek Fork. By noon I ate lunch near the Hay Reservoir, and, though it was dried up, I found enough puddles to pump water through my purifier and wash down my cheese tortilla. The morning of my third day, I passed Scotty Lake which was not saline as I had been told and there was plenty of water. At this point I cut cross country and north around the west side of Picket Lake to reach the Forks-Atlantic City Rd., a two-track which would lead to South Pass City. During the afternoon, I came across another flowing well near a stock tank. By evening, I was sitting on the shore of the Sweetwater River, drinking my fill. Because of cloudy overcast days with sprinkles now and then, I was able to hike thirty plus miles each day, reaching the trail to South Pass City on the third day.
For me, the Great Basin was a quiet land of solitude with its own magical landscape. I sat in the ruts of the Oregon Trail and looked back over the terrain and time. I realized, once again, that knowledge and experience turn fears into facts, dragons into friends.
For nearly a hundred miles, I could see the Wind River range to the northwest. It seemed like an oasis to be reached, rewarding me for crossing this dry alkali basin. I could see rain from the Winds dissipate as it was blown across the basin.

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