We crossed the Canadian border along Waterton Lake at 2:17 PM on September 24, 2002. The end of a 5 month journey along the Continental Divide.

We made some changes to our planned itinerary along the way, but kept to our plan of a continuous, south-to-north hike. We were not threatened by Colorado's many forest fires, but the fires did keep us from including Grays Peak in our hike. 

We found the CDT much more challenging than the PCT. We spent time on most days along the Idaho-Montana border looking for the route we were supposed to follow. In addition that portion of the trail is much more rugged than we anticipated. We spent many miles walking roads - from abandoned jeep trails to US highways. 

The scenery along the trail varied from the high mountain vistas to miles of sagebrush. The divide was sometimes a carved knife edge, but many times was a wide, gentle slope.   

Below is information from our pre-hike planning.

Our latest change is to include one of Colorado's 14'ers, Grays Peak at 14,270 feet. This involves a couple of re-supply changes and a couple more days hiking, but we stay on the divide longer.

Just when you think you have things worked out, something comes up. We have been looking at the snow levels in the Rockies. Glacier National Park is just over 100% of normal, but all of Colorado is at about 50% of normal. And southern Colorado is even lower. Besides, if we start northbound we can start hiking much earlier! So, we flipped our itinerary and now we are starting at Mexico.

  This is the view past Goat Haunt Ranger Station. Wow - what a view. Originally this was our view at the start. Now it will be our parting view of the CDT.

We made a strange discovery when we flipped our itinerary. We had figured the number of hours of daylight into how many miles per day we could hike. By starting in May we get more hiking hours per day and the total number of days is less. 

If Colorado suddenly gets more snow, look for our schedule to flip back to southbound.

 We think we will hike 2800 miles in just under 5 months on the trail. We have drawn our route (and a few alternate routes) on the many maps. Some areas are still undecided and we may decide to take an alternate route when we get to the split in the trail. 

We are keeping occupied planning food and filling our 30 re-supply boxes. Imagine buying your groceries for the next 5 months, then trying to pack it away into cardboard boxes.

We will be adding more information as we develop our plans, so keep watching this space!