Bye bye Idaho, hello final state of the CDT - Montana!

Day 118

Date: 27.08.2022

CDT Mile: Mile 2'362.5

Miles hiked: 9 miles / 14.4 km

Elevations: 696 feet ascent (212.3 m Aufstieg) / 1'329 feet descent (Abstieg 398.7 m)

Camping at: 7'054 feet / 2'151.5 m

We hiked out early, motivated to get to the town of Darby and get breakfast! We hit the road and finally left Idaho behind us for the last time, till we reach the canadian boarder! Only Montana left, last state of the CDT! That's kinda crazy. I hiked all open parts of New Mexico, everything of Colorado Wyoming and Idaho so far! Reaching the highway I got a hitch with the first car passing by. Good sign, I like Montana😁 we got to the restaurant in Darby by 9am. And ordered a huge breakfast meal consisting of a sirloin coutryfried steak, toast with gravy (they run out if biscuits), two poached eggs and a toast with butter. Our table could hardly hold the portions we all ordered! But it was good, very much needed and very filling. At the restaurant we also run into 'Soccermum' and Curtis. Curtis is a trailangel in town we didn't know of and he invited us all to stay at his place, shower and do laundry. Soccermum stayed with him already last night. That's awesome, as we plan to do another hero day here and get back on trail this afternoon. Time is very scarce on such days. We do laundry, take a shower, I go and pck up my new shoes from the post office (in my old ones I hiked more than 500 miles with) and do resupply. I also decided to leave the group of Cheetah, Captain and Mouse and hike out with Soccermum. Soccermum has hiked the PCT last year and finished the trail on the same day I did in 2018, on 21st of September. So both of us would like to reach the northern terminus at the canadian boarder by then if possible. Also, he is a strong and fast hiker, and for sure we will be able to hike a couple of more miles each day then when hiking with the group. But the group and I will stay in contact and see each other again in towns and we are still planning on hiking the New Mexico section together, which was closed when we were there due to wildfire danger.

Soccermum and I leave Curtis house around 5pm. We hike out of town, passing a liquor store, where we spontaneously bought some red wine for the evening, and tried to get a hitch at the end of town. We trued and tried and tried very hard to get a hitch, but were not successful. After maybe an hour a car who passed us already turned around. He would pick us up till Sula, the next place, may bed half way back to our trailhead. Okay, that's great. While having a great ride and chatting along, they decide to drive us all the way back to the trailhead, which is more than a 45 minutes drive in total! Awesome! Back on trail we hiked only a couple of miles, due to it being late already. We packed out the wine and I bought some fried chicken, mushrooms, mozzarella sticks etc. at the deli section of the grocery store, which I packed out too for dinner. It was late already when we finally got to bed. I hope the wine helps me falling asleep very soon!

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