Day 107 - Continental Divide Trail - Horse Creek Trailhead to Sawmill Creek

Day: 107

Date: Wednesday, 21 August 2024

Start:  Horse Creek Trailhead (but staying at Dillon MT)

Finish:  Sawmill Creek

Daily Kilometres:  26.3

GPX Track:  Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos

Total Kilometres:  3107.6

Weather:  Mild and mostly sunny in the morning, overcast with a few sprinkles of rain in the afternoon and then partly cloudy in the evening.

Accommodation:  Tent

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Bacon, egg & cheese McGriddles & hash browns.

  Lunch:  Turkey & bacon wraps

  Dinner:  Rehydrated meals.

Aches:  Dave - the usual niggles; Julie - nothing reported.

Highlight:  Endless views in all directions for most of the day.

Lowlight:  Nothing in particular.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We had a gentle start to the day, leaving the motel at 7am and, after picking up some breakfast at the nearby McDonalds, Mathieu and Christine drove us back to the trailhead from Dillon, a journey of about 75 minutes.  On the last part of the drive, we saw three southbound CDT thru-hikers, the only hikers we saw for the day.

After saying our farewells to our French Canadian friends, who had gone to such lengths to meet us on the trail, we began the not-so-gentle part of the day.  From the trailhead we climbed steeply upwards and the rest of the day, at least until late afternoon, was a rollercoaster.  The trail followed the grassy ridge which marked the Idaho-Montana border and it went up and down relentlessly and often very steeply.  But, the views were superb, although we didn't always enjoy being able to see, far ahead, the faint outline of the trail as it climbed over yet another knoll.

There were pockets of pine forest in some of the valleys below, but we stayed well above the treeline.  The trail was unmaintained, narrow and uneven underfoot making for difficult hiking.  In places it was hard to follow though there were CDT markers every so often to give us some assurance we were going the right way.

In late afternoon, we made a long descent and stopped at a creek for dinner.  From there, we stayed relatively low and the trail took us through some forest and grazing land populated with herds of cattle.

Around 7:50pm, on the crest of a low ridge, we found a place to erect our tent and called it a day.  Although we finished at roughly the same elevation we started, 7500’, we climbed and descended 4000’ to get here.