CDT again: Alice Creek trailhead to Rogers Pass

The blues and yellows of summer wildflowers along the trail

Mike makes his way up Green Mountain

The laccoliths on the Great Plains from the top of Green Mountain

This is a beautiful and historical 10-mile section of the Continental Divide Trail between Lewis and Clark and Rogers passes that contains fabulous views of the laccoliths to the east, the highest point in the Bob Marshall Wilderness complex to the north, and west-side mountains without end.

It also includes the climb of Green Mountain (elevation: 7,453 feet) that has a wonderful spring on its south flank.  We gained some 2,800 feet on this hike.

By cutting the trail we reduced the distance by a mile and found a gorgeous bunch of blooming bitterroot wildflowers in the red shale.

Bitterroot galore in the red shale on the flank of Green Mountain 

I've never had a year when I've seen so much bitterroot.  I think I've seen more bitterroot in the past three weeks than I had seen in my previous 47 years of hiking in Montana.

We did the hike with Camille Consolvo and her husband, Mike Dannels.  We drove up four cars to Rogers Pass.  Mike and I then drove our cars down to Alice Creek trailhead and began our hike to Rogers.  Katie and Camille started at Rogers and headed for Alice.

This social distancing thing is expensive and annoying, but we all feel it important to keep our distances and drive separately.

For Mike and me that last two miles from Cadotte Pass to Rogers Pass was familiar territory that we have covered in the spring when the forget-me-nots cover the hillsides like a carpet.

On this hike we saw the summer colors that reminded Mike of the Los Angeles Lakers' colors:  the blues of the lupine and golds of the stonecrop and buckwheat wildflowers.

There was ample evidence that grizzlies frequent the area:  the rototilling of the soil in search of the biscuitroot, the large piles of scat that mark their territory.  We were intrigued to see massive amounts of digging where the bitterroot bloom, much as we had seen on Anaconda Hills on the Flesher to Rogers section of the trail.

Despite perfect and clear weather we saw only one out and back hiker from Rogers Pass on the trail, and no CDT through hikers.

This has been quite a summer for the CDT for me, with more than 125 miles of it hiked in the past three weeks.