Day 23 - Bigger day into town

June 11th 

20 Something Miles

Budget Inn Express Helena

Woke up earlier than normal and got a head start to the day. Three thru-hikers we saw in Lincoln past by as we ate breakfast. Got going up right away and the trail disappeared. There was a faint notion of where to go and paired with the maps it was easy to follow up above treeline. After more steep, and I mean STEEP climbing, a little downhill relief came by and after a few miles more we were back onto forest service roads. The junction at the roads had a fenced off spring to keep cattle out. The three hikers were far away off to the left snacking and I wondered why they weren't near the water. I jumped over the fence and lifted off the spring hood and found out why they weren't over here.

It's a bit hard to make out with the glare but that is four dead squirrels in the spring. The one furthest to the right has its head missing because it got sucked in the tube head first leading to the cow trough and seeing a squirrel sucked head first into a tube was pretty hilarious. What wasn't so hilarious was the dead rodents in some of the only water for miles.

That's when I saw the Ley map alternate that is miles shorter, mostly downhill into the valley on a different forest service road and seemingly follows water as opposed to more high and dry hiking on other dirt roads. Score, a nice break. Well the first instances of water were crap, well cow crap. The road followed private cattle land where Spins and I had some 'fun' encounters with protective mama cows who decided chasing us for a bit would keep us away from its babies. It worked haha. Later on we found water coming off a gulch and stocked up. The shortcut made it possible mileage wise to haul ass to town which we did and got a ride from two guys working on power lines in the area. We rolled into town and there are bunches of hikers here we've yet to meet, it looks like Helena has sucked some people into zeros. I'll be doing the same tomorrow!