Day 126, Ramshorn Lake to Big Sky

Polecat wasn't hiking with us today because he needed to walk back to the trailhead where he parked his truck yesterday. We left camp together, but Top O' and I headed in the opposite direction.

Though we knew we would meet Polecat later today, there was no way to be sure when or where that would happen. We knew we would eventually be walking on a road and didn't expect it would be difficult for him to find us.

Before we set out, we made a plan for how to signal Polecat so he would know if we had already walked past the next trailhead.

Top O' and I started by hiking on the Ramshorn Lake Trail, which extended from the lake across a large, hilly meadow. A craggy ridge stood to our right, which included Fortress Mountain. It was a 9,771-foot-tall neighbor of Ramshorn Peak.

The meadow was filled with grass and wildflowers. When we came upon an unusual rock in the middle of the field, I wished Polecat was there to see it. He has a degree in geology, and I thought he would have been intrigued by the giant boulder.

I guessed it was a glacial erratic and figured he would know for sure it was that or had been expelled in a volcanic eruption. Maybe it was both.

After walking about a mile, we made a left turn at a junction to stay on the Ramshorn Lake Trail. As sometimes happens, I had to turn one way but wished I could see what was down the other trail. That trail was the Gallatin Divide Trail, which went deeper into Gallatin Petrified Forest.

As petrified forests go, this one was unusual. Most are formed when tree fragments are buried by stream sediment and eventually become fossilized. The trees in Gallatin Petrified Forest turned to stone after being buried by volcanic material.

The volcanic eruptions that created this petrified forest happened about 50 million years ago.

Top O' and I continued to walk over rolling hills. We turned at another junction to follow the Porcupine Creek Trail, which went in the general direction of the creek.

When we reached a gravel road, we left a message for Polecat. We placed two sticks on the ground in an "x" to let him know we had already been there. This was as we had planned before we started hiking because we didn't want him to wait for us after we had already left.

The sticks were the only way we could think of to tell him that. We didn't want to trust that cell service would be available. We could have sent a message from my Garmin InReach to his, but those messages are sometimes delayed in being sent.

After crossing Gallatin River, the road led us to U.S. Highway 191. They were the same river and highway we walked along the day before yesterday. We arrived there at noon.

The highway took us in the direction of Big Sky. The road here was busier than when we walked it before, but a bike path alongside made the walk safe and easy.

Polecat caught up to us in his truck a short time later, and we decided to stop walking to look for someplace to eat lunch.

Big Sky isn't a real town. It's unincorporated and is just a collection of businesses and homes in and around a ski resort and a golf course. It would not exist without tourism and recreation.

The restaurant we found for lunch was Lone Peak Brewery. It was in Big Sky's main shopping center, which also included a grocery store and a post office. While we ate our lunch, we worked out a plan for the rest of the day.

Polecat agreed to hang around while Top O' and I slackpacked the remaining miles to Big Sky we skipped when he drove us to the brewery. We only carried a minimum of items in our packs, while Polecat held onto the rest in his truck. This way, we needed less effort to complete the skipped miles.

This was already the third time we were slackpacking with Polecat's assistance, and I was sure it wouldn't be the last.

When we begin hiking again tomorrow, we will leave the same shopping center and go in the other direction. Once again, we will keep our footsteps connected.

We walked along another bike path to get back to Highway 191. On the way, a big thunderstorm quickly rolled in and dumped heavy rain on us. Thankfully, the rain didn't last more than 15 minutes.

Soon after it stopped, we met four thru-hikers heading toward Big Sky. They were Stinger, Juice, X-Ray, and Bullet. We ran into Hollywood a short time later.

A gas station was at the intersection of the highway, and we met Polecat again there. He agreed to drive us to where he picked us up before lunch so we could walk back to the gas station.

If it seems like we were doing a lot of shuttling back and forth and walking in different directions, that's because we were. We didn't do this just because we could, and we couldn't have done it without Polecat's help. We were trying to take advantage of the elevation changes to always walk downhill instead of up while still keeping our footsteps connected.

Butters and Beer Goddess showed up soon after we arrived back at the gas station. They were running short on time to get to the post office, so Polecat agreed to drive them there.

After that, we drove nearly an hour north to a Super 8 in Belgrade, a town just outside of Bozeman. The motel was more than $100 less expensive than if we had stayed in Big Sky.

We may be platinum-blazing, but there are limits to how much platinum we can afford.