Day 122 - Continental Divide Trail - Pintler Pass to Rainbow Mountain

Day: 122

Date: Thursday, 05 September 2024

Start:  Pintler Pass

Finish:  Rainbow Mountain

Daily Kilometres:  33.5

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

Total Kilometres:  3544.0

Weather:  Cool early then warm and mostly sunny with some smoke haze.

Accommodation:  Tent

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Pop tarts/Muesli 

  Lunch:  Snacks/Trail mix 

  Dinner:  Rehydrated meals 

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

Highlight:  Getting onto North Montana, the fifth and last map set for the Continental Divide Trail in our navigation app, FarOut.

Lowlight:  Nothing in particular.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

Our day was to be spent crossing the Anaconda Pintler Wilderness.  We began hiking with a descent from Pintler Pass, where we had camped, around 6:30am on a cool and clear morning.

The pattern of our day soon became clear, as we reached the base of the descent, passed a picturesque lake, Johnson Lake, 1500’ lower than the Pass, then began the long climb to the next pass.  This time it was Rainbow Pass (9052’) and the climb seemed interminable on gnarly single-track trail.

There were great views from the pass, but these were soon lost as we descended steeply into the pine forest again, and past the beautiful Rainbow Lake.  The gnarly trail continued downwards through the peaceful and atmospheric old-growth forest getting as low as 7400’, before beginning the climb to yet another (unnamed) pass at 8600’.  This time there was just a short descent to the spectacular alpine Warren Lake, perched at 8400’ and backed by sheer rocky Warren Peak.

Another 1000’ of descent followed on gnarly trail before we began the climb up to Cutaway Pass (9032’) from where there were more awesome views.  Then it was back down into the forest again for the last few hours until we eventually camped around 7:45pm amongst the pines.

We didn't get as far as hoped today as Dave struggled from the first long climb.  The ups and downs, and the gnarly trail, following a tough day yesterday, seemed to catch up with him and he was tired and slow all day, despite assistance from some caffeine and Tylenol.

We’re hoping that the terrain is a little more forgiving tomorrow and looking forward to a shorter day on Saturday.