Today was a great day!  Not only were Mav, Gaucho and I back together, but we did 29.5 miles – a new record for me.  We also completed Montana and Idaho and started Wyoming!

I left Sawtelle resort at 6:00 am and proceeded down the highway. After a couple of miles I crossed the Henrys Fork river and entered the tiny town of Island Park/Macs Inn. The trail leaves the highway here and follows a quiet paved side road to Fish Creek where it turns up a wide gravel road.  The roads got progressively worse and more remote and always climbing.

I met a nice guy on an ATV that gave me a bottle if water.  I didn’t really need it and didn’t want to carry the empty bottle afterwards, but he wanted to help so much and I didn’t have the heart to refuse.

Gaucho and Mav caught up with me and we had lunch at Latham Spring – a slow trickle from a pipe that took about 3 minutes to fill a liter. The water was clear and cold and really hit the spot. While on the road I had cell service so I called Yellowstone and got a permit for the three of us to stay at Summit Lake.  Mav and Gaucho were both very grateful, but it meant we were going to have to do some serious miles today.  The next 16 miles had no water sources so we filled up 3 liters each.

The scenery was a bit ho-hum – just a lot of thickly wooded sloping hills. We climbed most of the day and eventually came to the Yellowstone Park boundary. The entry was not nearly as auspicious as I expected – just a small sign nailed to a tree, and the trail was definitely not very well maintained. I don’t think many people use this trail other than thru hikers. The trail traverses the Yellowstone back county which I remember from earlier hikes – gently rolling hills on a plateau with alternating burned sections and thick forests with occasional whiffs of sulfur from thermal features.

Soon after crossing into Wyoming we were greeted by a beautiful double rainbow, although by the time I thought to take a picture it was only a single rainbow.

We are now camped at Summit Lake along with Smiles and her brother, Melissa from New Mexico, and a few other people I don’t know.  The mosquitoes at the campsite are pretty bad, but I expected that from camping here before with Pat.