Made it to East Glacier and less than 100 miles to go!

Day 138

Date: 16.09.2022

CDT Mile: Mile 2'876.6

Miles hiked: 23.2 miles / 45.3 km

Elevation: 2'477 feet ascent (755.5m Aufstieg) / 3'454 feet descent (Abstieg 1'081.2 m)

Camping at: East Glacier! (Last town before Canadian boarder!)

We hiked out early, motivated to reach town today and had to cross several rivers first thing in the morning. The water was super cold and I am definitely awake! It drizzled a little, but it seems that the sun will come out soon. I kept my crocs on, so my shoes don't get wet and only changed into my hiking shoes after 4 miles, when we hiked all the river crossings. A couple of miles later we reached Marias Pass at 10am and the highway leading into East Glacier. But the CDT trail leads straight intp East Glacier and we don't have to hitch or hike the paved road, even though hiking along the highway would shorten the hike by 5 miles. Instead we hike through a nice forest at first. But the forest starts to be very overgrown again and the trail slim and very unlevelled. I don't like that trail much. It's like a small rollercoaster, steep small up's and down's over small streams, through bushes where the trail can hardly be seen, very bumpy and unlevelled and not easy to hike at all. We made it to East Glacier by 3pm though, much earlier than I have ever thought after leaving Augusta that late on Monday evening. Arriving at East Glacier kinda feels strange. I couldn't wait to get here the last couple of days and was pushing hard, but it is also the last town on trail! It seems like the town is split into two sites. On one side of the trail tracks there is the 'Looking Glass', the hiker place to hang out, a bakery and the laundromat and about a mile down the other way, on the other side of the trail tracks, there is the grocery store and the mexican restaurant and in between the two is the Glacier Lodge, a super nice and historic building with rooms and a restaurant. Hitting the road, I try to hitch the mile to the grocery store. And indeed a car stops. Driving the car is 'Farmhouse', a hiker I met and hiked into Silvercity, the second town along the CDT in New Mexico. 'Farmhouse' only hiked the section from the mexican boarder to Silvercity, as he has hiked the rest of the CDT the year before, hence I have never seen him again. He works at West Glacier as a guide and by pure chance was at East Glacier today. How crazy is that, that he is the one giving us a hitch right when we got to the road?! Must be destiny! He drops us off at the general store and next to the mexican restaurant. But the restaurant only opens at 5pm. It doesn't make much sense to hike the mile back to do laundry and then hike the mile down again to get food, specially as we have hiked already more than 23 miles. So we just hang out in front of the grocery store, get a milkshake, coke and a slize of pizza and wait. It feels like waisting my time as I can't to anything and there is no wifi too. About 1.5 hrs later Cheetah, Mouse and Captain hike in too and as soon as it is 5pm we hit the restaurant together and order food and a pitcher of Margarita😁

On our way back to the Looking Glass, where we will stay tonight (as most hikers do), we stop at the grocery store again and order a pizza to take out. Hiking along the road back to Looking Glass a car stopped and asks where we got the pizza from. We told him that if he would give us a ride up (like 0.5 miles) then we would tell him where we got the pizza from😁 and so we got a hitch back up🤣

Arriving at the Looking Glass we run into several CDT hikers. The Looking Glass is a place where one can rent tiny cabins (they only have a bed inside) and they used to have a restaurant too. The new owners are renovating the place and let CDT hikers either pitch their tents outside on the grass or sleep inside on the floor. They also have toilets, showers and a kitchen for us. It feels like an adventure expedition base camp, where all the CDT hikers stay before finishing the trail or when returning from the boarder. The air is filled with this special energy and everyone is chatting and re-meeting hikers we haven't seen for ages. The ones returning are able to give us some tips and information on campsites that Glacier National Park and how to get the glacier permits. Most hikers are here to hike up to the boarder, but many of us will return here to East Glacier again and hitch or fly or take the train back home or elsewhere. So we are a colorful, 'stinky' group of all ages of hikers, all excited either because we are soon finishing or because just returning. We are the rare ones of the many hikers who started down at the mexican boarder, have made it all the way up here and will finish the CDT in 2022! Nothing can hold us back now anymore. It's such a great atmosphere, I love it here!

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