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Spring-Summer 2008: Continental Divide Trail Cultivates Its Own Culture by Kelly Bastone The hiker standing in line at the Steamboat Springs post office kind of looks like a local. Wearing a synthetic t-shirt, shorts and hiking boots, he could be any outdoorsy Steamboater waiting to pick up a package.  | | Ken Proper |
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Except he’s carrying a full, expedition-sized backpack with an ice axe strapped to the outside: Why didn’t he leave that in the car? And every time he shifts his load, the odor escaping from under his pack straps signals he isn’t just starting his hike— he’s already logged a few trail miles. About 1,400 miles, in fact. With just 1,400 to go. Steamboat is a rest area along an interstate highway most
‘Boaters don’t even know exists. Each year, some 30 people thru-hike the entire Continental Divide Trail, which follows the Rockies’ spine from Mexico to Canada. Occasionally, the route skirts towns like Steamboat – which serve as pit stops. Northbounders, or hikers traveling from Mexico to Canada, hit Steamboat in June; southbounders pass through in September. They grab a shower, a burger, maybe a package containing food, maps and gear they’ve shipped to themselves. Then they filter back to the trail to resume their journey: Should you see a backpack-toting hitchhiker thumbing a ride to Rabbit Ears Pass, where the trail crosses U.S. 40, chances are they’re thru-hiking the CDT. The CDT’s cousins are the venerable Appalachian Trail, which hugs the eastern mountains, and the Pacific Crest Trail, which follows the Sierra and Cascades. But the CDT is the wildest, toughest, most elusive jewel in the Triple Crown of long-distance trails. It explores the Rockies’ most remote and forbidding terrain, hovering around 11,000 feet through the mountains and traversing vast deserts. And sometimes it isn’t even a trail at all, but merely a suggested route. Only 67 percent of the CDT is complete, meaning hikers must often chart their own course using wilderness navigation skills. Averaging 17 miles a day, thru-hikers typically spend about six months backpacking the CDT. For some hikers, even that’s not long enough. Clint “Lint” Bunting thru-hiked the CDT in 2007, after compiling an impressive long-distance hiking resume: The Ice Age Trail in 2003, the Appalachian Trail in 2004 and the Pacific Crest Trail in 2006. That’s not unusual; like a double-blackdiamond ski run, the CDT hardly makes a suitable first trail for beginners. It’s also common for hikers to feel sad, rather than jubilant, when they finally reach the end of the line. The night before he attained the CDT’s southern terminus, after hiking some 2,800 miles south from Canada, Lint wrote, “This is my last evening on the CDT, the last night to watch the stars and feel the dirt under my bed until next year. Tasting freedom, no ... wallowing in it for over four months, and now it comes to an end. How else could I feel? How could I not want this night to last forever?” Thru-hiking the CDT – or any of the nation’s great long-distance trails – offers a way to drop out of society, to pursue an alternative lifestyle where things like jobs, houses and commercial entertainment have no impact. Walking through
the wilderness is like a modern pilgrimage, and each seeker has his or her reasons for hitting the trail.
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