Day: 099
Date: Tuesday, 13 August 2024
Start: Firehole Springs Backcountry Campsite
Finish: Summit Lake
Daily Kilometres: 31.5
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos
Total Kilometres: 2900.0
Weather: Very cold and partly cloudy early, then rain most of the morning and occasional thunderstorms during the afternoon.
Accommodation: Tent
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Cheese omelette, bacon & hash browns, toast & jam
Lunch: Hot buffet lunch
Dinner: Nothing.
Aches: Dave - very tired and the usual niggles; Julie - nothing reported.
Highlight: Seeing the Old Faithful Geyser erupt several times though, for some reason, being part of a huge crowd detracted from the scene a little. Made it more like a circus attraction than a natural phenomenon. We preferred the smaller geysers that we passed on the trail yesterday.
Lowlight: Dave, whose boots and socks had been gradually drying out all day after getting soaked yesterday, slipped on a log crossing a small creek late in the afternoon and managed to get boots and socks totally wet again. As it turned out, following a later thunderstorm, wet undergrowth saturated all of our footwear and socks anyway.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
We woke at 5am on another very cold morning and were hiking by soon after 6am, intent on getting to the Old Faithful village, 8km away, in time for a good breakfast. After descending through the pine forest, we emerged into the already busy large tourist complex soon after 8am.
It took us a little while and some walking to orient ourselves, but we managed to be on site for an Old Faithful Geyser eruption at 8:45am which was a bit of a fizzer because the fog and steam completely masked the height of the eruption. We then adjourned to the warmth of a nearby grill which opened at 9am, after learning we would have to wait 30-40 minutes for the Lodge breakfast buffet, and enjoyed a delicious breakfast.
Sadly, by the time we finished, steady rain was falling and our plans for the morning changed. Julie was going to go for a walk while Dave (who has been here three times before) took it easy but, instead, like everybody else, it seemed, we adjourned to one of the public areas in the warmth of the Lodge to wait out the rain. It was even too wet to walk the considerable distance to the General Store to resupply for the next few days.
Eventually, the rain eased a little and Julie went to watch another eruption of Old Faithful before going to the store for our supplies, during which time, the rain came down again.
For lunch, we decided to go to the Lodge buffet but the queues were long and it was after 1pm before we got in, though the meal was excellent.
After lunch, and an hour or two later than planned, we began hiking the 16km to our campsite starting out via the busy boardwalks visiting other geysers and geothermal features in the immediate area. They were impressive, but the crowds were oppressive, and it wasn't much fun.
After a few kilometres, we left the tourist area behind and rejoined the CDT trail. It was clear we were going to be very late to our booked backcountry campsite, particularly as Dave seemed to be having another bad day (or perhaps too much buffet lunch), and the hike became even more tedious as a thunderstorm and rain rolled through making the trail and undergrowth wet.
Eventually, we reached the Summit Lake campsite around 8:30pm but found the tent sites taken by other hikers. We decided to hike another kilometre or so and camp (illegally) by the trail. We found a site in the pine forest at 9pm and quickly set up the tent and went to bed, skipping dinner, having had such a big lunch.
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