SUMMARY:  Surprise! The day began with a brief bit of rain, then a glorious sunrise. Turned out that the only reason we got rained on was that we were camped up so high. Shortly after we started hiking, the trail disappeared, and we were following cairns over the rocky mountains. Four long, rocky, rough descents came next (sigh—I am so slow on that kind of trail) and we began a pattern of “trail into pretty green forest” then “trail through brushy meadow”. In one of the forest bits, we met a SOBO with a huge pack. He said he’d made better progress than he expected, and had a leftover camping permit for tonight—would we like to have it? Wow!!

That meant we could get into Yellowstone instead of waiting at the border, and only 24 miles to do tomorrow instead of 27, to reach the road, where we could get a ride into Grant Village. So tonight we are in a very nice official backcountry camp near the Snake River.

DETAILS:  Very early this morning, it started to rain–drippy, drip-drip.  It was clear when we went to bed, but clouds had moved in during the night.  It turned out later that the only reason we got dripped on is that we were up so high (10,000′).  But before we needed to pack up, it stopped, and we were fine.  The clouds started clearing, and there was a glorious sunrise.

We headed out, determined to finish the  climb to the top of the ridge–only a little bit left to go–when the trail disappeared.  Oh no, not again!  But then aha!–a cairn, another cairn, and hooray, there was the trail!  But the long downhill on the other side was tough.  It was very steep and very rocky, which meant slow going for me, but no worries, because all we had to do was make it to the Yellowstone Park border.   The trail started following a sort of “pattern”–over a pretty little forested ridge, then down into a brushy meadow area (I did a lot of yelling in those areas!!), then repeat.

Around 11:00, on one of the forested ridges, we met three CDT SOBO’s–one thru and 2 sectionhikers who were coaching him.  The thru had an enormous heavy pack, and the other two were trying to teach him how to “lighten up”. We showed him our packs and joined the “chorus” of telling him he didn’t need a lot of that stuff he was carrying.  In the conversation, it came up that since we have no permits, and no way to phone for them, we would camp at the park border and make the 27 mile run to the road tomorrow.  The thru guy said, “Wait!  I have a permit for TONIGHT at #8C9 campsite, and I don’t need it.  Here–you can have it!”  Wow!!! That would be a big help–only 24 miles to do tomorrow instead of 27.  We might be able to reach the backcountry office tomorrow afternoon!

So we hiked off saying, “Thank you, Lord!”  We had lunch when we got to the ranger station at the park boundary, then strolled along the trail till we got to our new destination, meeting more SOBO’s along the way.  They are all heading for Togwotee Lodge, and are trying to figure out how they will get around the fire.  It was fun talking to them–we were in no hurry.  By 2:30 pm, we had reached the campsite, which turned out to be very nice.  It’s by a creek with good water, there is lots of flat ground, and a “bear cable” for hanging our food.  We set up our tent, hung up our packs, and headed off to the creek to wash our socks and ourselves.   Then we just lazed around and rested.  I looked at the maps and figured out that tomorrow we have three 8-mile legs to do.  The mountains here look lower and more gentle, so I think it will be very do-able to make it into Grant Village before 4:30 pm, even including trying to get a hitch at the road.

We went to bed early and were glad of the extra rest.  We are tired!