The Throwback Series: The One With The Crazies

It was nearing the end of August and our long summer days here in Montana were becoming few and far between, so I wanted to get out into the mountains for a couple more overnight trips before summer had completely disappeared. We started throwing some ideas around with friends, and finally decided on a Friday-Saturday backpacking trip in the Crazy Mountains (aka The Crazies).

After work on Friday Jordan and I hit the road headed for Big Timber, MT and reached the trailhead around 5:30pm. When we arrived, we had to decide if we were going to just have a quick snack and wait to eat our dinner until we got to our camp spot, or make our entire dinner before we set off (because there was no way I’d make it 5 feet before needing something to eat…). Since one of us is terrified to hike in the dark (I’ll let you guess who that might be), we decided to throw on our packs and grab a couple granola bars to hold us over.

Two of our friends had already gone up earlier that day to set up camp, and another would be hiking up after us. We had hiked to this spot the year before over Labor Day weekend as a part of a 3-day/2-night backpacking trip but were excited to be able to explore the area more this time.

The hike was about 4.25 miles and took us just over 2 hours. The elevation gain was about 2000 feet, so it was a pretty steady climb. Once we found our friends up at the top, we set up our tent and got started on our dinner (we were both VERY hangry at this point and actually couldn’t talk about anything other than food the entire hike up).

Our other friend arrived shortly after us, and me and the 4 boys (oh ya, did I mention that I was the only girl!?) spent the rest of the evening hanging out by the fire, eating jiffy pop and dark chocolate (a backpacking staple), staring up at the stars, and talking about everything from conspiracy theories to trying mushrooms (like I said, did I mention that I was the only girl!?). We finally went to bed around 1am, and it felt surprisingly cool during the night considering it was still August.

The next morning, we woke up slowly and had a lazy morning – drinking coffee, fishing, reading, and talking. Our 2 friends that arrived first the day before ended up taking off just before noon, and so the 3 of us that were left enjoyed lunch before setting off to explore.

With our bellies full, the 3 of us made our way up the mountain to get a better view of Blue Lake (where we had camped), but we decided (and by we I mean the 2 boys) to just keep going up, and up, and up, and up… until we reached a rather steep ridge line that offered 360° views of the Crazies.

Jordan, the brave and adventurous man that he is, went along ahead to the end of the ridge line while we hung back, a little afraid of how narrow the ridge was and how steep is was on either side of us. Once he got to the end and yelled back at us that it was worth it, we agreed to tentatively (*cough* on our hands and knees *cough*) make our way along the ridge line. And Jordan was right – it was more than worth it.

After taking some pictures (okay, a TON of pictures, but can you blame me??), we hiked back down to the lake to finish packing up our stuff and have a quick snack (if you haven’t noticed, eating is a common pastime during our backpacking trips…) before starting our final hike out. All and all, it was a great couple of days in the Crazies with some crazy boys.