We ate through the rest of our food bags, and thus were motivated to get to the Two Medicine Camp Store before they closed. There we would need to buy our lunch and dinner, as well as breakfast and a couple snacks for the 10 mile trek from Two Medicine to East Glacier.

Because the skies were still remarkably clear, Hobbit came up with an alternate route from Pitamaken Pass (7623 ft.).

Supposedly it would cut off two miles of our 12 mile hike for the day. (let’s say it didn’t feel like it did).

Not only would we climb up this pass, but we would continue to Dawson Pass (7800 ft.)

This would lead to a precarious ridge walk with a fierce headwind.

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Just prior to cresting the pass, Paul and I would drool over some of the largest trophy rams we have ever seen.

Once again the binos that “weigh hardly anything” came in handy. Our phone’s camera could NOT do them justice.

Prior to our hasty descent, namely because we were food/beer motivated, but after the fabulous ridge walk, we had our last snacks and took a nap to the chagrin of day hikers who had come up from Two Medicine Lake.

Once we made it down to the far end of Medicine Lake, had we paid better attention to the map, we would have forded a narrow portion of the lake (shoes and all) to not have to walk the mile from the backpacker sites to the store. (*Actually, Paul and I somehow were able to “yogi” a ride to the store.) $70 later we ate our fill, drank a few beers, and packed up our food for the evening and next day. We were not so lucky on our trek back to the backpacker’s site.

Much to our surprise we found the backpacker campsites quite small and near capacity. We and another late arriving pair, however, were the only CDT thru-hikers.

After set up at camp, we took advantage of the shallow end of the lake, had a swim and lounged on the “beach”.

Upon return, we ate our second store sandwich and retired for the evening, lulled to sleep by the musings of two girls trying to impress two guys, who were trying to impress two girls, all while overusing the word “like”.