hike draw hike

We have breakfast at Paul’s and hit the road. The drive into Glacier is gorgeous.

We pause at Marias Pass where the CDT crosses the road. Burrr it’s cold! Snow flurries fill the air, quite the shock coming from LA!

We pass through East Glacier and spot several groups of hikers on the road, they must be just arriving off the Amtrak train! (Because they look so clean haha)

I’m excited to meet other hikers! I’m hoping to find some cool gals to hike with 😎

We take a hot chocolate break at St Mary Lodge Resort. There are many visitors from all over the world. It’s fun people watching.

It’s nice that anyone can experience the park, it’s so accessible.

We continue our drive to Many Glacier. The scenery keeps getting better and better.

Arriving at the Many Glacier Hotel feels like stepping back in time. Absolutely breathtaking.

We grab some lunch. My stomach is much better! I’m able to finish a full burger! What a relief. I need those calories!

Paul and my mom are rockstars and drive me over the the Many Glacier ranger station to get my walk up permits.

Glacier National Park requires permitted camping. You can reserve your campsites in advance, however they quickly get full. Thankfully the park reserves 30% of the sites for ‘walk up’ campers (where you show up ready to camp the day of or the day before).

That’s what I’m doing. Having missed the window to make reservations, my only option is to obtain a walk up permit.

I’ve never done this before and it was a little stressful just showing up, not knowing how many nights (and therefor how much food) I would need for the park. Or if I would have to hangout for days waiting for spots to open up. A leap of faith, have you.

Well, I had a great experience.

The rangers were incredibly friendly. It definitely helped that I came prepared with a campsite wish list.

Most of the sites I wanted weren’t available and the rangers helped brain storm what my best options were. One site I have to hike 5 miles off the CDT then back, another is banking on the hiker biker spot being open (fingers crossed). My shortest milage day is 4.9 miles (a painting day!) and my longest day is 25, over a pass (a hustle day haha).

Apparently they have a larger than normal number of CDT hikers coming through right now. A lot of people flipping up north who were hiking in the south or people coming from the Pacific Crest Trail.

Once I was happy with my itinerary, the rangers had me watch a 15 min video on park safety. It was pretty well produced! Lots of bear pov camera work, very fun.

They asked me a few questions about the video and, voila! Permits acquired!

Thank you Many Glacier park rangers!

It feels good to have my campsites settled for the next few days.

We go back and check into the Many Glacier Hotel. The rooms are cozy and make me feel like we’re in olden times. We have a balcony with a view of the lake! Just wow.

The rest of the day is spent exploring.

We have dinner and I eat a large portion of pasta.

And watch the sunset across the peaks.

Can’t believe I’ll be on trail tomorrow!

I’ll likely have poor cell service for the next few days. I’ll post when I can!

Welp. I seem to have gotten food poisoning and haven’t been able to eat much all day. I’ve been drinking lots of fluids and resting with the hopes of feeling better for the start of my hike.

I felt okay enough for us to check out a local diner. I nibbled a pancake.

We visited some local ponds and fields looking for baby coots. We didn’t find any but saw two bald eagles! (One right in front of Paul’s house!)

Wow this country is gorgeous. I can’t wait to start my hike.

I went through all my gear with Mom and Paul as an audience. It was fun showing them my set up!

My mom got me a little momma bear charm for the hike ❤️

I’m putting her right next to Jiji (from Doug) and a little luck charm my friends Alexis and Richard got me for the trip. Thank you so much!

Going to rest hard tonight.

We’re driving to Many Park tomorrow!!!

Doug drops me off at the airport.

Gosh goodbyes are hard.

I will be thinking of him the whole trip and look forward to seeing him here and there along the trail! 💖

I’m flying with an osprey airporter duffle to protect my backpack as a checked bag. As much as I’d love to bring it as a carry on, there’s no way it would fit in an overhead bin, especially on a tiny flight to Kalispell.

I manage to tape a box around the sharp point of my ice axe while it’s looped onto the outside of my pack. My ice axe is a little long and I’m impressed the osprey duffle fits over it and the box! I hope the axe doesn’t pierce right through the box and duffle!

The flight went by quickly. There is still so much snow in the sierras! I can imagine what hiking through there must be like: lots of postholing! (where you take a step on a snowy surface and sink down, sometimes up to your waist!)

Hopefully I won’t have much of that. Glacier’s snow this year has been a little below average.

The osprey duffle survived the flight! But the axe totally punched through the box… I might need to double box the axe next time? (Sorry I forgot to get a picture)

In Kalispell I meet up with my Mom and her old coworker friend Paul!

They have been planning a road trip through Glacier NP to Banff for over a year and are willing to give me a ride to Waterton on their way! What luck!

Thank you so much for letting me crash the first few days of your trip!

Some late night hikers woke us up but otherwise I got decent sleep.

We made breakfast wile we dried out our tents. I had instant carnation breakfast mix combined with instant coffee and some belvita cookies. Dixie ate some delicious looking warm oatmeal with a side of hot coffee. Yum!

The sun came out and helped dry our gear.

We hiked up towards Eagle Rock. The trail was still pretty overgrown but not as much as yesterday’s climb. It’s so neat watching an area transition over time. The last time I was here was with Sooyeon and the hills were covered with white flowers, now they’re covered with yellow!

We pause at Eagle Rock to enjoy the views.

The ocean and downtown LA can be seen in the distance.

We decide to hike down into Temescal Canyon instead of ending at Willrodgers. It’s logistically easier for our plans (and thankfully less overgrown).

We pass some crew workers fixing the fire road before descending into the canyon. I’m very excited about this haha. Yay trail maintenance! Thank you for fixing the washed out sections!

What a great trip! I feel so lucky to have awesome friends to explore these trails with me!

Some things I learned from this shake down hike:

• My plastic spoon is not great. It’s light weight but also hard to clean, bendy when hot, and melts. I’ll be going back to my metal spoon. Lighter isn’t always better.
• I’d like to try something I can cold soak meals in that I can also sanitize with really hot water. Going to give silicone bags a shot.

• My iPhone and inreach drained my anker power battery pack to half with just one charge each… rut row. I’m going to look into getting a solar charger to supplement the battery pack for those longer stretches between charging opportunities. (Got any solar panel recommendations???)
• The larger Zpacks duplex tent does better when you can stake out the extra guy-lines on the sides. You technically only need 6 stakes to set this tent up, but it’s more comfortable head space with the 8. Especially if it’s windy out.

• I’m keeping my pack towel. I was thinking of not bringing it to save weight but I used it too much on this trip. I’m sold on its usefulness.

• I brought a small stick of sunscreen and used it all up in two days haha. I’ll need a bigger container of sunscreen, especially if I’m wearing shorts….

• I think I’ll try those zip off pants instead of shorts to give my legs a break. (I’m imagining I’ll run into a lot of downed trees at the start of the trail. Also pants = less sunscreen)

• Also! Also! My knee didn’t bother me once! Hooray!

I’d say this was a pretty successful shake down trip.

Thanks for following along!

I got poor sleep, some person or animal was coughing all night. It was kinda creepy, maybe a fox?

We woke up to a translucent mist coating the area. It was beautiful but made everything damp.

Dixie was up earlier than me and spotted a uniq camper next to us.

We stretched and made breakfast.

I brought an empty sunflower butter jar to attempt cold soaking some dehydrated veggies and ramen for lunch! I’ve never tried this and am excited to see how it turns out. You add water and wait a few hours for the food to rehydrate before eating it (kinda like overnight oats).

Today was a big climb to the top of saddle peak. We were very thankful for the cool weather!

The trail was very overgrown, the damp plants soon had all our clothing and gear drenched. The wetness really snuck up on me! It was too warm to wear a rain jacket, esp since we were hiking up a long steady hill. It probably would have been a smart idea to wear one anyways since everything got soaking wet. If it had gotten any colder I’d be in trouble of catching hypothermia. Lucky for us this is Southern California! I’ll be smarter next time.

In some sections the plants were even taller than us! Dixie’s shirt got large smears of yellow pollen all over it making it look like tie dye lol

I was focusing really hard on using my trecking poles to block the vegetation from touching me but was largely unsuccessful. We were covered with wet yellow flower pedals, sticks, blades of grass, seeds, leaves, spider webs. I kinda felt like a floral swamp creature haha

The thistles were the worst of it for me. My legs were getting pretty scraped up. I knew it was going to be overgrown. Why did I wear shorts? Sigh.

Up up and up we climbed

We took a break in a semi dry spot sheltered by a big rock. I tried my cold soaked ramen and veggies. They rehydrated perfectly! It was actually really tasty too! I totally would eat this again.

We got chilled during our lunch break and put our rain gear on over our soaking clothes before pushing on.

Erie sandstone formations loomed over us as we neared the summit.

This is one of my favorite sections of the Backbone Trail.

We found more neat seashell fossils as we traversed across the saddle, then began the long descent down the other side of the peak.

Even this side of the mountain was overgrown! I pointed out an old abandoned fire watchtower above us, its sides covered with graffiti.

Eventually we made it to the bottom near a small stream filled with little black tadpoles.

The sun came out and I took the opportunity to shed my rain gear, hoping to dry my clothes. The warm rays felt so nice!

We hiked behind a super cute little elementary school nestled in the wooded hills. Then the trail led to a super busy road crossing, North Topanga Canyon Blvd. Some kind drivers stopped traffic to help us cross, thank you drivers!

The gentle climb up through Trippet ranch was just beautiful, starting with manzanita lined sandstone trail then transitioning to fields of gold dotted with purple flowers.

I think the lense on my waterproof case must have gotten scratched. All my photos are coming out blurry. I’ll have to look into getting a new case before heading out on the CDT. I’m planning on using my iPhone as my main camera.

Phew! We were happy to arrive at Mush Camp. We had the place to ourselves. It was rewarding to see the old fire watch tower so far off in the distance.

The clouds came back but it wasn’t as chilly as earlier. We set up our tents and cooked dinner. I tested out some Idahoan instant potatoes with dehydrated veggies and textured vegetable protein. It was pretty good! Like a loaded baked potato mash.

Then I wrecked my sunflower butter jar by trying to sanitize it with hot water. 😭 The water was too hot and melted it. Aw man. Dixie had a great idea to try using a silicone reusable baggie instead. Such a good idea! Can’t wait to try it!

I spent some time painting scenes from the day before it got too dark.

What a great day! We turned in early hoping to get some good sleep.

I’ve been typing up these notes in my tent at the end of each day. I’m using the notes app in my phone. Unfortunately I can’t use the WordPress app to back up drafts without having really good cellphone connection or internet access, so these blog posts will likely happen when I’m in town.

There’s no better way to prep for a long trip than a short shake down trip. My good friend Dixie and I did the eastern section of the Backbone trail in the Santa Monica Mountains over 3 days.

Here are some pictures and notes from our trip!

Backbone Trail Day 1

Doug gives us a ride to the Latigo trail head, the road is super windy and I get really car sick.

Once we arrive, I take a beat to lie down in the parking lot. Dixie gives me some ginger candies and I start to feel much better. 

Doug is the best. The last time I was here he was rescuing me when Covid shut everything down. I was attempting to thru hike this trail in 2020, but that’s a different story for another time. It feels nice to be back here.

We say goodbye and head out down the trail.

There are so many flowers! It’s stunning.

We cross a small stream several times before breaking for lunch near some rock formations. We even find some fossilized sea shells! It’s fun imagining this patch of stone under water at one point in time.

As we descend towards Malibu Creak Canyon the marine layer spills over the edge of the backbone. It’s breathtaking.

There are so many interesting plants from all the rain! Dixie and I try to take pictures of each one to identify later. We keep spotting pairs of quail hanging out in the middle of the trail. Their little head bobble feathers are so entertaining to watch as they hurry out of the way haha

We come to a larger stream crossing and bust out the sandals. The water feels so nice!

We’re so close to camp, we hike the rest of the way in our sandals and my feet get filthy haha. We find our reserved site at the Malibu Creak State Park and set up our tents. A very kind neighbor, maybe 6 years of age asks if we would like to borrow some of his fire wood. So cute haha

His mom explains that it’s his first time camping, how fun! Thank you for the fire wood friend! I don’t think we’ll be able to give it back though…. Haha

All my gear is working great, though I might swap my plastic spoon back to my metal one (it doesn’t melt like the plastic one does haha)

This concludes day one on the backbone trail!