Day 100 - Continental Divide Trail - Summit Lake to Moose Creek

Day: 100

Date: Wednesday, 14 August 2024

Start:  Summit Lake

Finish:  Moose Creek

Daily Kilometres:  39.6

GPX Track:  Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos

Total Kilometres:  2939.6

Weather:  Very cold early, then cool all day, partly cloudy in the morning and thunderstorms with hail and rain in the afternoon.

Accommodation:  Tent

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Pop tarts

  Lunch:  Meat & cheese subs

  Dinner:  Snacks

Aches:  Dave - the usual niggles plus a right groin strain incurred when recovering from a stumble; Julie - nothing reported.

Highlight:  In mid-morning we left Wyoming and entered Idaho, our fourth state on our journey.

Lowlight:  Thunderstorms in the afternoon brought very cold temperatures, hail and rain.  It was unpleasant hiking and, of course, got our footwear and socks wet and cold again.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

Given how late we were camping last night, we slept in until 6am as Dave was desperate to get a reasonable night's sleep.  Sadly, more gastro trouble caused that sleep to be interrupted and.he didn't feel great when we started hiking around 7:30am.

Our last kilometres in Yellowstone National Park continued across a high plateau (8500’) through pine forest and a burnt area with the smell and steam from another geothermal area passed along the way.

Around mid-morning we crossed from Wyoming to Idaho, another milestone for us, and, in late morning, we exited Yellowstone.

The weather deteriorated during the afternoon as we followed a series of forest roads, some disused with massive berms to prevent vehicle use, but also challenging for hikers to negotiate.  We left the official CDT and joined the Mack's Inn Alternate, which we will follow for the next few days.  It gives us a chance to have a short day tomorrow and to resupply.

We actually made good progress today, despite the late start and poor weather in the afternoon, and ended up getting closer to Mack's Inn/Island Lake, where we have a cabin booked for tomorrow night, than we had expected.  Dave was hindered by a groin strain sustained during a stumble, but Tylenol made it more manageable.  The scenery was mostly just pine forest today, with few views.

Around 7pm we found a place in the forest by the side of the road to erect our tent.  The storm must have been more intense here as a lot of hail remains on the forest floor.

Given our long day and the prospect of good food tomorrow we just ate snacks for dinner before retiring to the tent.

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