{"id":569,"date":"2016-08-03T00:11:27","date_gmt":"2016-08-03T00:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/?p=569"},"modified":"2017-05-29T14:59:08","modified_gmt":"2017-05-29T14:59:08","slug":"getting-into-yellowstone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/2016\/08\/03\/getting-into-yellowstone\/","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday, August 3 Getting Into Yellowstone"},"content":{"rendered":"

SUMMARY:\u00a0 <\/strong>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\u2014I 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\u2014would we like to have it? Wow!!<\/p>\n

That meant we could get into<\/span> 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.<\/p>\n

DETAILS:\u00a0 <\/strong>Very early this morning, it started to rain–drippy, drip-drip.\u00a0 It was clear when we went to bed, but clouds had moved in during the night.\u00a0 It turned out later that the only reason we got dripped on is that we were up so high (10,000′).\u00a0 But before we needed to pack up, it stopped, and we were fine.\u00a0 The clouds started clearing, and there was a glorious sunrise.<\/p>\n

We headed out, determined to finish the\u00a0 climb to the top of the ridge–only a little bit left to go–when the trail disappeared.\u00a0 Oh no, not again!\u00a0 But then aha!–a cairn, another cairn, and hooray, there was the trail!\u00a0 But the long downhill on the other side was tough.\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Around 11:00, on one of the forested ridges, we met three CDT SOBO’s–one thru and 2 sectionhikers who were coaching him.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The thru guy said, “Wait!\u00a0 I have a permit for TONIGHT at #8C9 campsite, and I don’t need it.\u00a0 Here–you can have it!”\u00a0 Wow!!! That would be a big help–only 24 miles to do tomorrow instead of 27.\u00a0 We might be able to reach the backcountry office tomorrow afternoon!<\/p>\n

So we hiked off saying, “Thank you, Lord!”\u00a0 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.\u00a0 They are all heading for Togwotee Lodge, and are trying to figure out how they will get around the fire.\u00a0 It was fun talking to them–we were in no hurry.\u00a0 By 2:30 pm, we had reached the campsite, which turned out to be very nice.\u00a0 It’s by a creek with good water, there is lots of flat ground, and a “bear cable” for hanging our food.\u00a0 We set up our tent, hung up our packs, and headed off to the creek to wash our socks and ourselves.\u00a0\u00a0 Then we just lazed around and rested.\u00a0 I looked at the maps and figured out that tomorrow we have three 8-mile legs to do.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

We went to bed early and were glad of the extra rest.\u00a0 We are tired!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SUMMARY:\u00a0 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wyoming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":981,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569\/revisions\/981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}