SUMMARY:  We didn’t think we could do it, but we did—a 29 1/2 mile day that put us over the border of Yellowstone Park and into Idaho! I think what fueled it was the breakfast buffet at the historic Old Faithful Inn. We ate and ate—all so good—before getting back on the CDT as it traveled past beautiful and amazing fields of hot pools, springs, and geysers.

A stiff climb up out of the valley, and we were on our way to Summit Lake, hiking through miles of burn zone recovery from the terrible fires in 1988. We were supposed to stop and camp at Summit Lake, but when we got there, it was only 2:15pm. “Let’s make a run for the park border! Only 9 miles—we can do it!”

Thunder, lightning, and rain had just arrived, but we raingeared up and headed down an often faint and overgrown trail. By 4:45pm we were at the Idaho border, and before dinner, we were OUT!! of Yellowstone. Celebration time!

DETAILS:  We woke up to a very wet tent (outside wet from rain, inside wet from condensation) and packed up by headlamp because we really wanted to make it to the Old Faithful Inn for the buffet breakfast!  At first the trail was just up ‘n down hills in the forest, till suddenly we topped out on a ridge and there it was down below–the whole Village, with the many geysers and hot springs steaming like crazy in the cold morning air.  The trail takes a very long, roundabout route, and we finally said “Phooey on this” and did a shortcut to the Village.  But we were VERY careful while on the shortcut.   There’s a lot of little geothermal stuff around here, less than a foot across, and we didn’t want to accidentally step in one of them.

But we made it OK and headed straight for the breakfast buffet, where we ate and ate and ate.  Wow, it was good!  And while we were eating, it started to pour rain and do some thunder outside, so we really lucked out on timing.  Once we were totally stuffed, we headed back to the trail.  We could have hung around for awhile to watch the Old Faithful geyser do its thing, but we had just missed it and didn’t want to wait that long.  As we walked by the front of the Inn, we noticed that there was a church service going on, upstairs, on an outdoor balcony!  If we had not already decided to make a run for the park border, we would have joined them.

The CDT route out of the Village takes you through a large geothermal area with geysers, pools, etc.  The pools are all beautiful colors, and the whole thing was amazing to see.  The rain & thunder returned for a little while.  Finally we reached the Summit Lake trail, and began to climb out of the valley.  Partway up, surprise!  We met Medicare Pastor and Rockstar again!  They were sitting by the trail having a granola bar break.   We met a few other hikers, too, all of them “loaded for bear”, meaning they had bear bells on their trek poles and bear spray cans on their pack shoulder straps.  I’m afraid we only have the bells.  The way we figure it, by the time you 1) Realize that the bear has evil intentions and 2) Unclip the bear spray and 3)Release the “trigger”  it is way too late.  So no heavy bear spray for us!

Once we were up out of the valley, the trail was reasonably good going, not too rocky, so we could walk fast.  We were going through the “burn zone” from the 1988 fires.  What’s weird is that though the fires were 28 years ago, some areas have regrown (trees the size of Christmas trees) while other areas are still just blackened wastelands of tree trunk skeletons.

By 2:15, we reached what was supposed to be our camp for tonight, at Summit Lake.  It was in the burn zone, and not pretty at all.  We looked at it in dismay, and to add to the “fun”, the thunder was starting to rumble again and rain was starting to fall.  Fixit and I wasted no time in making a final decision, “Let’s run for the border!  It’s only 9 miles away, and we have plenty of time!”  So we got water at the lake (no more water for the next 20 miles), raingeared up, and set out.

But once we had left Summit Lake, the trail quickly deteriorated.  Several times we had to stop and look for it.  There were also a fair number of blowdowns to climb over.  But we persevered, and just when the rain stopped and the sun started to come out again, we met 2 more SOBO’s.  One of them had only started in July, and he is already here!  Wow!

The closer we got to the park boundary, the worse the trail became–very rough and rocky and hard to follow.  But at the Idaho border, there was a sign, where we cheered mightily and finally we did a really big cheer when we reached the Yellowstone Park border!!  After that, the “trail” was basically on an old road and was easy going.  We did about 1.6 miles on it before we finally stopped for the day, which gives us around 29 1/2 miles total.  We have a nice campsite (no mossies!) but we will have to sleep with our food.  There is no way to hang it here–the trees are all very small.   But what a relief to be out of Yellowstone!  Hooray for Idaho!