Earlier this year, Rob, our local Montana transplant and character/caricature extraordinaire, cooked up a hare-brained idea to go backpacking in Montana’s Bob Marshall Wilderness. Among other things it’s known for having the highest population density of grizzlies anywhere in the US outside Yellowstone and Alaska. Then Rob got COVID right beforehand and only came out to meet us at the trailhead and wish us “Goodbye, good luck, don’t die” and wave his hand cannon around recklessly for a bit.
Our ursine protection having abandoned us, Tom, Isaac, and I bravely ventured into the wilderness regardless. All told we were out there for six days, Oct 3–8 2022, on an out-and-back trail from the Benchmark Campground to Burnt Creek and back.
A defining feature of the Bob Marshall Wilderness is that no mechanized conveyances are permitted, not even bicycles. Even the rangers and work parties use horses and mules to get around. There are also vanishingly few permanent structures. So one of the first sights we saw cresting the first hill and really entering the region was a train of literal government mules hauling supplies and tools for work rebuilding a Civil War-era styled wood bridge across a creek.
Our nominal objective was the Chinese Wall, a 15 mile long, ~1000ft high escarpment along the Continental Divide. It is really something to see in person. We had excellent weather throughout the trip, blue skies and mostly just-warm temperatures, but the mornings and particularly at the high point camp across from the wall warranted puffy jackets.
A notable wrinkle in this trip was that exactly 8 weeks before departure I suffered a major tear of my left peroneal tendon (left outer foot) on a local hike. I wound up doing this trip with my foot in a removable cast shoved into my boots, a lot of ibuprofen, and icing my foot in freezing mountain streams whenever possible. For additional foot-related hilarity, on the last night I managed to significantly melt my boots, as well as setting a pair of underwear on fire. I’d put it all alongside our small camp fire to dry and then failed to move it when the latter became a much larger fire. Fortunately the cast prevented the deformed boot shape from pushing too hard into my injured ankle.
We did not see any bears during our trip. However, one did come by during our last night to leave a present immediately outside our tents. Coming back to “civilization” we learned that the day we were walking out a bird hunter had been killed by a bear they’d stumbled on and surprised just 20 miles north of where we were.
