THE
GREAT DIVIDE
I
was up for a lovely sunrise the next morning.
During breakfast I heard coyotes singing, and later we heard an elk
bugling. We broke camp and climbed back
up to the Continental Divide. From
there, we enjoyed mostly easy hiking again, following the divide south. We were treated to another morning of
non-stop views and pretty clouds.
We
stopped for lunch at Lake 10,445’, which is an alpine beauty. It would make a great place to camp, but we
were only able to stay there for an hour or so.
From there, we enjoyed views of Crescent Mountain across the Crescent
Creek valley. The Continental Divide
crosses Crescent Mountain, but our intended route would bypass it to the
west. Crescent Mountain is notorious for
its difficult talus, so most hikers bypass it.
First
though, we had to tackle one of the more difficult sections of the route. After leaving the lake we followed the Divide
west. We descended steeply into a gap
and eyed up the route ahead. The
Continental Divide follows a very steep ridge through bands of cliffs. Fortunately, there is actually
a beaten path that veers a bit north of the Divide, avoiding the worst
of the cliffs. It was still a tough
climb with a lot of loose scree, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I feared. From there, easy terrain led to the base of
Crescent Mountain. We dropped off the
Divide there, contouring around the west side of the mountain. There was still a lot of talus
along our route, so I’m not sure if it was much easier. Some people have trouble navigating this stretch,
as it is easy to drift too far west and too far downhill. We fought against that by trying to maintain
the same elevation as we contoured around the mountain.
This
stretch had one scenic highlight. The
ridge above was mostly made of bright red and green rock. The green may have been moss or algae, but it
was hard to tell from a distance.
The
weather was a little threatening that afternoon. There were a lot of thunderheads building,
but most of them missed us. We did get a
brief sprinkle, which was enough to make me put on my rain gear. As soon as I accomplished that, the rain
stopped, the sun came out, and the temperature went up about 30 degrees.
We
rejoined the Continental Divide southwest of Crescent Mountain. A long descent followed, ending in a gap separating
the headwaters of the South Fork of the Buffalo from the headwaters of Perry N
Boday Creek. I had originally planned to
camp at Perry N Boday Lake, but that was a mile out of the way. The weather had cleared, so we decided to
continue along the Continental Divide.
A
big climb followed. We turned south and continued on the divide, but then left it by taking a
shortcut to the southwest. We crossed a
small stream and continued west, wandering among small hills and gullies. My rough goal was a tarn farther west, just
below the Continental Divide. However,
we stumbled upon a smaller, unmapped tarn a bit sooner. It was getting late, and there was a grassy
area near the tarn that was adequate for camping. It wasn’t a great spot, but it had a nice view,
and we were serenaded by frogs that night.
We were also treated to a spectacular sunset right from our campsite. I wish I had known that there was an absolutely spectacular place to camp a couple of miles
farther west, but we didn’t discover that until the next morning.
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