John and Sally attempt the Continental Divide Trail

Drifting Thoughts Hundreds of grey flat bottom cumulus pass above the cowboy landscape like a great caravan of wagons.    Their cargo, water to quench my thirst and ease my sore throat and thoughts of the past days. My throat has become increasingly sore. Swallowing is painful and talking, or articulation, is something I try to avoid.    This makes chatting with Sally impossible and frustrating for both of us.    The rarified air at this altitude dries out membranes and replaces them with sandpaper.    I manage ‘Hey Bears’ by making a noise with my diaphragm but they come out in a John Merrick Elephant Man fashion.    And when I try to chat with Sally I sound like Vito Corleone ‘Sarry, tik a lk at tht mntn’.    I begin to relieve the pain by holding water in my mouth, breath through my nose, gargling; suck on a Sour Patch Kid (SPK), snorting, making gross hacking sounds and occasionally with great relief removing an offending g...

If during the planning of this journey you had tried to describe to me the beauty that I would see, smell, touch and emotionally connect with, I would have not hesitated in coming to this place.  There was at the time of coming to America significant pressure from friends and peers not to come because of the geo political situation.   But where is here? Here is a place where I realise that religion, politics, and social gossip have no place.  They merely serve as a buffer, a distraction between us and who we truly are.  This sleight of hand we have created takes away our right of existence. To be.  Here in these mountains I am not in a country I am part of the country, an equal to every living thing including those damned mosquitoes that appear when I sit with Sally in the evening to nurse our sores, talk about our day and talk about our tomorrow. 170 miles to new shoes! The map is not the territory   Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were sent by Presiden...

Helena to Sula Whilst the above are towns that Sally and I stayed in, they are both off route.     That is to say that the Continental Divide Trail runs between them.     Geographically that makes sense, run off from the mountains nourishes the towns in the valleys and plains.     It is this feature that we are following and when we run out of food or need a rest, towns such as these are vital. The support that these towns and its generous inhabitants give is invaluable in this quest of ours.     As we saw in East Glacier and Augusta the stores, hostels and community are just as much part of the journey as the beauty and wonder that nature provides when in the mountains and hills of Montana. Equally too fellow hikers that share the journey, who fall in and out of step as the days pass give depth to the story.    For instance in Helena, as we were buying me a ‘sunbrella’ at an outdoor store, U-boat, Hamburglar, Deferred, Matcha, Plan B, a...