Day 129, Cherry Creek to Meadow Lake Campground

We are still walking on the Big Sky/Super Butte Alternate instead of the official CDT route. We've been following a track we downloaded to Gaia, but the app doesn't offer some of the information we've been accustomed to getting from Guthook.

Navigating this way has occasionally required us to make guesses and assumptions. That was often the case today.

We walked through a cattle-grazing area, which didn't make the route easier to follow. Cows had added their own trails in a few places.

Though the drizzle eventually ended, low clouds lingered through the morning and sometimes caused foggy conditions.

Before long, the lake came into view, though I was still about four miles away from reaching it.

The terrain here was an open range with only a scattering of small trees and shrubs. This turned out to be a help as I made my way down to the lake. My GPS app placed me at a spot on the map that didn’t line up with the path and landmarks I was seeing around me on the ground.

I paused to make sure I hadn't missed another turn. When I saw there was no other road or trail nearby, I correctly concluded I was walking in the correct direction and the map was wrong.

Five miles into the hike, the trail entered a side canyon and followed Trail Creek down to another canyon formed by the Madison River. This one was called Bear Trap Canyon.

Meriwether Lewis gave the river its name during the Lewis and Clark Expedition. It was named for James Madison, who was the U.S. secretary of state at the time and later became the fourth U.S. president.

I found Polecat and Top O' at the bottom of the canyon where they had stopped at a trailhead parking area. We attempted to dry out our gear there but didn't have much success. The sky was still too overcast.

Polecat told us he found a site at Meadow Lake Campground, a small facility with no services except a pit toilet. It was operated by Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks and provided fishing access at the lake.

After we gave up trying to dry our tents and sleeping bags, Top O' and I followed a gravel road for the last 3.1 miles of the day's hike. This took us out of Bear Trap Canyon and around the north side of the lake to the campground.

The lake was formed at the end of the canyon after the completion of a dam on the river in 1906. The reservoir covered less than 5,000 acres. It was shallow, just 20 feet in the deepest areas.

Although the sun never appeared, we were now well below the low clouds. The rain continued to hold off and I began to hope a few rays of sunshine would penetrate the clouds. That didn't happen.

There were some nice wildflowers to see and photograph along the lakeshore. Prairie sunflowers were the first. Also known as lesser sunflowers, they can be found throughout a wide part of North America. They can grow up to four feet tall and are often the size of shrubs, but these were smaller than that.

Another wildflower I saw was Rocky Mountain beeplant. The first written description of this wildflower came in a book by the German-American botanist Frederick Traugott Pursh, who examined specimens collected by the Lewis and Clark Expedition in South Dakota.

Despite the plant's name, its flowers are attractive to many pollinators, not just bees. Native Americans found several uses for it, and it's understood that they cultivated it to ensure it was available the following year.

Bad weather continued to hold off while I walked, but I began to wonder how long that would last. I saw dark, menacing clouds behind me on the ridge we had descended from this morning.

In the last couple of miles of our walk, the area surrounding the lake transitioned from rugged and remote to rural, with a few homes and ranches appearing along the road. A humorous sign was posted to warn motorists of this change. It said, "CAUTION, FREE RANGE CHILDREN & ANIMALS. PLEASE DRIVE SLOWLY."

After Top O' and I arrived at Polecat's campsite, we set some items on the table to "reserve" it. We didn't want to set up our tents yet in case a storm blew in while we were away. We then left to drive into Ennis.

Fewer than 1,000 people live there, but it was large enough to support several businesses. U.S. Route 287 runs through the middle of the town, making it an attractive stop for vacationers. We went first to Gravel Bar, where we ate an early dinner.

We ran into Spench, Spamcake, and Cheeto Jackson, and later saw Loverboy, as we left the bar. Despite a late start yesterday, they found their way into town a short time after us.

Polecat then drove Top O' and me to a grocery store, where we purchased food for the next four days of hiking.

Rain started falling just before we arrived back at our campsite. Not surprisingly, Polecat had a solution for that. He pulled out a tarp from his truck, and we sat under it to wait out the rain.

The rain fell for about two hours before diminishing enough for us to decide it was time to set up our tents. Just then, we noticed a bull moose munching on grass about 50 yards away. It was a large and intimidating beast, probably weighing more than 600 pounds.

The moose took no notice of us and was content to finish his dinner before wandering away.

Rain continued to fall well into the night.