Tuesday, August 18, 2020

Hiking The Continental Divide Trail

The Continental Divide Trail runs some 3,100 miles, atop the Rockies, from Mexico to Canada. We hiked bits of it the three days we were parked at the Homestake trail head. Somewhat less than 0.2%, but it was a good trail, well-maintained, and scenic, with views of Butte and also the Boulder Batholith. We've probably done a couple hundred miles of the CDT in Wyoming, some years back, but that was in the winter, on a snowmobile (see, for example, https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2015/02/snowmobiling-continental-divide-trail-1.html or https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2016/02/snowmobiling-continental-divide-trail.html).





Tree versus sign, episode #1,208

Tree versus rock, episode #83,401; [further comment suppressed]

Bear den condo (seasonal)

Beautiful trail


View of (relatively) unplundered portion of Butte



Moeraki Beach?

Early August, 6,500 feet, still abloom


Old mine entrance

After our third night, we returned from hiking to find the parking lot plastered with new signage

To the inexperienced eye (e.g., mine), the boulders of the Boulder Batholith look like they were
dropped there by a passing glacier; but here, in a road-cut, you can see them emerging, as geologists
tell us, from the younger detritus that covers them




Cleared for landing at Le Grande Aerodrome Internationale du Butte
Had we been younger, more energetic, or at least interested, we might have hiked the 10 miles
north on the CDT to Maud Canyon and this spectacular view of the Berkeley Pit, where much
of old Butte and Walkerville used to be [it's a long, interesting but ultimately depressing story; probably more has been written about Butte than any other comparatively-sized town,
anywhere]; and this unusual dorsal view of Our Lady of the Pit [someone else's picture;
obviously]

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