by Kip Rusk
In 1977, I walked a route along the Continental Divide from Canada to Mexico; a trek that lasted nearly 9 months. My good friend, Craig Dunn, hiked with me as far as the Red Desert in southern Wyoming where his right knee ended the trip for him. This was long before the advent of cell phones, GPS and an established Continental Divide Trail system. We used paper maps from the U.S. Geological Survey and communicated with the people who were following us via mailbox and pay phone whenever we came into a town to resupply. It should also be noted that I’m attempting to recount this story some 40 years after the fact, without the benefit of an exacting memory. Because of this deficit, the details of my story are filled-in using imaginative memory, meaning, I’ve imagined the details as they probably would have occurred. This is an account of that adventure.
Part 1 – May 10, 1977
Brian’s Jeep jumped and jolted its way down the muddy track with reckless abandon. The sky was cold and dreary, burdened with moisture-laden clouds spitting a rainy sleet. There was no talk, only Brian’s incessant smirk, which he didn’t even try to hide as he was relished the moment. The time had finally come to shut-up and put-up and as far as the ‘shut-up’ part was concerned, naked reality had turned Craig and I into a couple of salt stones.
I hung onto the overhead grab by the window as Brian’s maniacal driving plunged us further into the forest until the muddy ruts had turned to slush, coming to an abrupt end at a locked gate. This was the end of the road for Brian, but for Craig and me this was the dumping off point. Mile one.
Brian hopped out of the truck with unnecessary enthusiasm, crowing “This is it ladies… chop chop!” He swung open the back gate of the jeep and hauled out our packs, dropping them in the mud splattered-slush. I stared out the front windshield, willing myself to move. At least the sleet had stopped. Craig stood by the truck, hands in his pockets, surveying the sea of clouds shrouding what little there was to see of the immediate peaks to the south.
I stepped out of the vehicle and looked down at my boots, a brand new pair of Galibier Peuterey mountaineering boots designed for “…extreme hiking and climbing”. I wasn’t worried about the boots, they were top of the line, I was worried about the feet in them. I glanced up at the dismal skies, then walked slowly around the truck to where Brian was standing by our packs with that damned Cheshire grin on his face. “Need help with your corset?” he sarcastically asked, pointing at my pack.
Like the idiots we were, Craig and I had spent the past year telling anybody and everybody how we were going to go out and walk the Continental Divide from Canada to Mexico. Just like that. In fact, as the legend of our prowess grew in our own minds, we went so far as to declare walking “…just not good enough”. Nope, we were going to adhere to the strictest line of the Continental Divide possible and where technical climbing would be required then, by God, we’d climb! Now Craig and I milled about listlessly, staring straight into the massive jaws of the trap we’d set for ourselves. Brian was here to watch us put our foot where our mouth was.
The packs were monstrous, maybe 90 pounds, bulging with 16 days’ worth of food, fuel, winter gear, climbing equipment, snowshoes, repair kit, 1st aid supplies, cook gear, tent, sleeping bags, pads and miscellaneous stuff. It was like trying to throw a dead gorilla on your back. “Let me get a picture here so they’ll have something to identify the bodies with later” Brian quipped. He took a picture of us looking heroic at the trailhead then walked up and shook our hands saying “Good luck ladies!” And with that he hopped back in the jeep and was gone. The clouds sagged deeper into the valley reflecting my mood.
We started off along the trail skirting Cameron Lake where, at first, there were stretches of open trail between drifts of snow but as we wound our way deeper into forest, the snow eventually won out and we had to stop to put on snowshoes. The snowshoes we carried were prototypes donated to us by a friend in the business called “Bear Paws”. The Paws consisted of a small, oval frame of aluminum with neoprene webbing and a neoprene strap/binding, an early step away from wooden snowshoes and a precursor to the modern-day shoe. It never occurred to me that they might fail, but it sure as heck ought to have; they were “prototypes.”
Posted with permission from rockymountaindayhikes.com. Visit their site read the rest of Kip’s story of his traverse on the Continental Divide Trail.
