The following day was much easier, a dirt road with nice views from high meadows. I met Knots, a NOBO hiker, and before Ant Hill Spring, I saw some very nice bear prints in the dust of the road. Yep. There be bear in these parts.
After washing my socks in the middle of the road by Ant Spring’s pipe, two guys in a truck asked me if I wanted a ride to the pass. To their surprise, I turned them down. They thought walking a strange and unusual thing.
The afternoon was hot, and fluffy clouds that had been a saving grace the day before, now absolutely refused to get between me and the sun. Finding a very small tree casting just enough shade for one person, I took a good long break. Wildlife included several groups of cows, smart cows not running away from me on the road, no herding necessary.
When I reached Red Rock Pass, RockStar was there with my car and a nice footlong from Subway for my dinner. She knew how to support a hiker, even if she didn’t walk all the trail with me. Eating in the air-conditioned car, we charged my phone. We found our previously placed food caches and tossed the bear cans in the car. Hooray. I wouldn’t need to carry a bear can. Camp chores accomplished, I became sparkling clean, by hiker standards.
RockStar hiked with me as far as Hell Roaring Creek with her full pack as a conditioning hike. We liked the striking rock cliffs at the entrance to the canyon. We’d seen this earlier while driving on the broad expanse of valley to the north.
Five SOBO thru hikers passed us. Both SOBO and NOBO CDT hikers hit this section of Montana at the same time of year. NOBOS start at the Mexican border in April or May. SOBOS usually begin at the Canadian border in July. I met many of both in Idaho and Montana.
After a snack break near the bridge, RockStar headed back to the car, and I continued up the creek, passing Lilian Lake, beautiful mariposa lilies and petal-less conehead. Topping the Divide about 6:00, I stopped to eat my previously hydrated dinner while admiring the flat plains to the south before crossing to the dry south side of the Divide.
The last water source on the trail was a very small trickle of a stream. I scooped a little pool under a tiny waterfall and eventually had enough water for my platy and the bottles carried on my shoulder straps. I’d carried more water in previous years, but I was older this year. The load was heavy. 4 ½ liters would have to last me two nights and a day and a half hiking. Ugh. SOBO hikers had informed me there was no more water until Odell Creek.
Stopping at 9:00, it was still light, and I quickly pitched tent and hung the food bag. I cleaned up with a pre-dunked soggy bandana. In the tent I treated my water and discovered a tiny hole in my platy. Bad. I could simply keep that hole up, so it wouldn’t leak in camp, but I would have to carry it on the outside of the pack where it wouldn’t be squeezed. The hole was tiny and seemed not to want to leak. Long hikes require continual problem-solving skills for whatever decides to go wrong.
In the morning I expected a climb over Taylor Mountain, a heavy pack and some nice views. I got so much more than I’d anticipated that lovely day. As I trudged uphill I met two thru hikers coming down through flowers, the fragrance of lupine thick in the morning air.
Travis came up behind me, a young local decked out in camo with his pistol on his belt. He was checking out the area for future hunting. Like thru hikers, he passed me as if I was standing still.
I kept steadily, if slowly, up the mountain more and more thickly covered with flowers. Lupine was the flower of the day but closely followed in numbers by thick stands of bright vermillion paintbrush boldly painting the sides of each ridge. Angelica and bedstraw added contrasting white. Travis stopped to sit and admire the view. "Absolutely beautiful," he said.
And I agreed. I’d seldom seen flower displays more glorious, rivaling Mount Rainier's flower shows in thickly covered beauty that went on and on. It was as if God had spilled all the paints in every color of the rainbow and the paint had not run together, each drop retaining its sparklingly clear color.
The top of the mountain was nearly anticlimactic. Oh, there were views aplenty, but they were slightly spoiled by smoky haze compared to the day on Lion's Head. The descent was on a long, gradually graded old roadbed. It had now become a place to continue the flower garden. It was a glorious day of flowers.
As I descended further, the trail became misplaced. I wasn’t lost as I was always clearly on my GPS and usually on the magenta line indicating my route. But after following the bent grass trail to a trail post, there were no more posts, no tread, and no more grasses bent by other’s passing. I crisscrossed the route on my GPS but didn’t find trail. I crossed the creek bed (dry as expected) clearly seen on both maps and GPS, but there was no trail there, either.
I continued following my red line for a long time. That kind of walking, on the side of a mountain, even if mostly in open country, was slow and tiring from the exertion of clambering up and down hills while stopping every few steps to verify my position on the GPS. Worry lingered. Although I knew I wasn't really lost, I wasn't really found either. I didn’t want to stop and camp until completely found, although I had my water and all I needed.
About 8:30, I saw a post and sign on the ridge ahead and above me directly in line with the setting sun. I climbed up that hill and positively identified the trail. A little to the side were two clumps of trees with enough ground to place my tent between them and a limb sticking out for hanging my food bag. The sun went down, but I was found again, so I was good with that.
I had only one bottle of water to last until the next water source, but I was good with that, too. I liked not carrying water and being on actual trail. T-minus and Buckeye, section hikers of my vintage, passed me in the morning heading SOBO. We had a nice trail chat, but I was sorry to give them the news there was no water until the other side of Taylor Mountain. They continued SOBO and I NOBO.
Reaching Odell Creek, I had an orgy of cleanliness. I washed myself, my bra, my shirt, and my socks. It felt SO good. Putting on a cold wet shirt was almost like diving into a cold swimming pool; it shocked tingling nerves but was delightfully refreshing to combat a hot day. I also had plenty of water to drink after treating it with Steripen.
When Dirt Wolf and Cheesy Snake came by, I told them the water info and my concern that T-Minus and Buckeye didn’t have enough water. They would surely pass them. Was there any way they could take a little extra for them? Sure. They said they would just fill everything up. Carrying extra water would kill me, but young thru hikers could do anything. I hoped they would find T-Minus and Buckeye.
Shortly after lunch, I came upon Rambler, an older hiker who remembered RockStar from 2009 on the PCT. He had a message for Beacon and Mermaid coming behind him, which I later delivered. RockStar and I had run into Beacon in New Mexico in 2013 and in Montana in 2015, the trail community spread out over miles and years.
Reaching the Aldous Lake trailhead, I found RockStar and cooled off in her air-conditioned car with a bottle of cold lemonade. Packed up, together we headed past Aldous Lake a few miles to make camp. RockStar would head back to the car in the morning, but it was nice to have company for a night. Her breathing problems were resolving thanks to Claritin and rest.
Aldous Lake was a family-friendly lake, only 1.3 miles from the parking lot. We saw a number of families coming out, one with pack goats and a number of children, including a baby. The wilderness is for all ages, including each end of the spectrum. Past the good trail from the parking lot to the lake, we negotiated a tangle of downed trees and new, steep trail before stopping for a leisurely evening, that tangle of trees a harbinger of things to come.
Waking to the smell of smoke and a red sunrise, we concluded the fire in Wyoming was growing. I left RockStar to make her way back to the car and headed out on the trail through another pile of blown-down logs. Good trail with a gentle grade made me feel I was doing well as I passed between two rocky cones, described in the guidebook and on the map. Then the trail promptly disappeared. I followed the bent grasses a little ways until they were not clear and seeme
d to be drifting farther away from my GPS route.
It was very difficult terrain for an old lady, an old burn area with lots of blowdowns from an old fire, now disguised and hidden in tall grass on a steep-sided hill under a hot sun, no shade, and no trail. I was seduced by an obvious trail above me with a cutout in the hillside. But that trail too petered out after about 50 yards. I carefully followed the contour of that horrid hillside toward the ridge my trail was supposed to pass, while looking below me for any sign of trail. That tactic eventually worked as I rounded the bowl of the hillside and saw trail below me. Carefully making my way down to the trail, I stayed found the rest of the day.
But I’d lost an hour on an already challenging day. Worse, I lost far more than one hour’s energy in that difficult terrain. My water source was a lovely stream with flowers and shade. But I was there at 11:30 instead of 10:30. I rested in the shade, ate my morning snack rather late, wet down my bandanas, hat and shirt, treated water to drink, and started off again.
Between the stream and Salamander Lake there was evidence of trail maintenance, fresh sawdust, blowdowns recently cut and even tall grass and weeds sheered back. I wished they’d gone a little farther with the trail maintenance around that horridly steep and overgrown hill on which I’d been misplaced.
After lunch at Salamander, I moved along fairly well for an old lady who had already expended much of her daily energy. I met SOBO thru hikers, Llama, DuPont and Steven. Nice young men. I had one last long steep climb at the end of the day before arriving at Rock Spring just as herd of sheep were leaving with sheep dogs and mounted sheepherders. I got my water at the slow trickle from a pipe carrying water from the spring to a 20-foot-long watering tank.
According to plan, I was supposed to go another mile or more. But it was late, and there was a metal bear box for my food beside the spring. I was tired. I searched for a place for my tent that was not covered with sheep poop and crashed. It had been a challenging day.
The last day of the section was 16-miles long and a long day for an old lady. I was more interested in covering those last miles than the views or the flowers. It was a long walk on a very hot day, mostly on a dirt road headed down out of the mountains to Highway 15. About a mile and a half from the end, RockStar met me in her car, and I gratefully walked the last part without the pack.
After a shower and a night’s rest in a bed, we drove to West Yellowstone. There was no straight-line paved highway from Lima to West Yellowstone. On the dirt road, driving a good way behind RockStar’s car to let the dust settle, I looked up at Mount Taylor and saw no sign of the magnificent flower show on its height. From the road, it looked like a barren ridge. Walking there had shown me the beauty hidden by distance.
On our way to West Yellowstone, we consulted with forest rangers about possibly passable backwoods roads on our maps. Then we drove RockStar’s four-wheel drive to set two water caches for the section we would walk leaving Yellowstone. Not able to do the long days of a thru hiker, our trip would take more time, and we would need water. We finally arrived in West Yellowstone and did our laundry. We also changed our hike plan as the three days planned in Wyoming were closed by fire.
I had an upset stomach for a birthday present. At least I didn’t have to do a lot of driving. After we parked my car at Targhee Pass, RockStar drove hers. I tossed my cookies in West Yellowstone and felt better, put the seat back and zoned out while RockStar drove to Old Faithful Village. We turned our backcountry reservation into a permit, dropped off a food box to pick up later, and played tourist with a few hundred previously unmet friends watching Old Faithful.
Then we drove to Grant Village campground. My stomach settled, and RockStar treated me to my birthday dinner, a light and delicious trout and Huckleberry brûlée. The wait staff sang to me for my B-day. RockStar said she hoped we would have “a restful and comfortable hike” through Yellowstone. I laughed and said not many people would put restful and comfortable in the same sentence with hike.
“A restful and comfortable hike”
Our trail from Heart Lake trailhead NOBO began with a long, nearly straight trail lined with young pine trees, meeting RockStar’s wish for restful and comfortable, more up and down as we went along.
While taking our morning break, Tattu Jo came by and sat to chat with us. A well-known PCT hiker, he’d accompanied Scott Williamson on a speed-record hike. I’d met him on the AT in 2010, and now he was working on his double Triple Crown.
Fording the outlet on the southern side of Shoshone Lake, RockStar got some of the crushed obsidian sand in her crocs. She said it was very sharp. I waded through in my hiking shoes, the cold water blessing my feet. We had lunch beside the lake, and I could have stayed there all afternoon listening to the water lapping on the shore, blue water under blue sky. As we were packing up lunch, Beacon and Mermaid came down the trail (SOBO), and we talked with them for at least another half hour in that lovely spot.
Ok, time for serious walking. The trail delivered more ups and downs in the afternoon. We forded Moose Creek and pulled into camp at 6:00. There were pit toilets, thrones without walls, in National Park backcountry campsites. We appreciated the opportunity to sit.
The next morning dawned with a cold start, 40 degrees at 6:00 and 36 degrees a half hour later. Fortunately, the temperature then rose. Descending into Shoshone Basin at the west end of the lake, we met Dirt Wolf and Cheesy Snake, whom we’d seen in the Centennials a week earlier. We also saw super fresh bear scat. Mr. Bear might have gone by as we stopped for snack. Pearly everlasting, monkshoods, fringed western gentian, and brushy cinquefoil were pleasing to the eye, along with the blue of the lake and the light and dark greens of basin meadows and trees.
After a sandy beach, we waded by yellow pond lilies in standing water, which smelled like a swamp. Some of the smell had been contributed by active geothermal areas a few hundred feet on both sides of the trail.
Geothermal Fun
Once out of the marsh, we came to another geothermal area with numerous pools of hot red or blue water bubbling like witches’ brews. Our favorite feature was a very accommodating small geyser that went off every three minutes, allowing multiple opportunities for picture taking. The leader of a group of kayakers said it was Minuteman, though that name wasn’t on any of our maps.
Hoping to see Lone Star Geyser that evening, we followed Shoshone Creek and then Firehole River and stopped to get water from the river as our campsite would be dry. When we reached our campsite, we quickly put up our tents and unloaded everything but food and smelly, bear-attracting things. Those we took with us as we hurried to the geyser, where we sat to wait a long time before RockStar discovered from notes in the geyser journal we had missed the eruption.
Back at our campsite, I tried to wipe accumulated trail dust from my body with a wet bandana. RockStar was too tired for another look at Lone Star, almost half a mile from our campsite, but I walked back for another look. Going off pretty regularly every three hours, Lone Star is a very large and long geyser with a 40-foot high plume. Starting at 7:52, the last bursts of steam clouds didn’t subside until 8:18. Very impressive.
In the morning we packed up and walked out to Lone Star Geyser again, so RockStar could see the show, a much different show in the morning but equally grand. First it bubbled and burbled, coy and camera shy, for about half an hour. We wondered if that was all. Then it did its grand major blow like the night before for 15-20 minutes, 40-feet-high and steady like a fire hose, changing from actual water to steam for another 10 minutes. Since the morning was sunny with a blue sky above, the pictures were better than the night before. To top off the show, a rainbow danced in the water drops around the base of the geyser. Nice way to start a day.
Four miles later, we were at Old Faithful Village having burgers at the grill. After showers, washing clothes, and organizing food, we enjoyed quality resting time and received a phone call from Jellybean, who was driving down from Helena after completing her Triple Crown. Yay. Congrats. W
e had met Jellybean on the PCT in 2008 and 2009 and had seen her in New Mexico, too. She was hiking with Smurph, a 73-year old, now also a Triple Crowner. They just happened to be driving through Old Faithful and would stop to see us.
We had a wonderful time catching up on adventure tales. Jellybean was also an accomplished sailor, who had sailed to Antarctica. After completing the Triple that year, she went to Alaska and built a log cabin. What a wonderful adventuress. It was great fun to meet Smurf too. Viva la 70+ -year-old hikers.
It seemed ridiculous, and possibly dangerous, for them to attempt to drive late at night to Dubois with nowhere to stop until then. We quietly smuggled them into our room, so they could sleep on air mattresses on the floor.
After breakfast, we said good-bye to Jellybean and Smurph. They drove off to Denver, and we hoisted packs and umbrellas to stroll through a light rain down Biscuit Basin. We had it pretty much to ourselves due to leaving early and rain, while steaming geyser vents throughout the basin put on a nice display in the cool air. Steam clouds made it difficult to get pictures of hot pools of bright blue water, but we took them anyway.
Heading up the ridge past Firehole River and Little Firehole River were two relatively short, but steep climbs. NOBO thru hikers, Third Monte and 76-year-old Fixit, passed us going uphill. Yay again for 70+ hikers. Fixit was the oldest hiker I’d seen on the CDT and a thru hiker at that. If he had an interest in completing the AT, he could easily be the oldest Triple Crowner, or at least the oldest one I knew, but he claimed no interest in that achievement.
By this time in my hiking life, I’d begun to say I might be the oldest woman Triple Crowner if I completed it. The statement was mostly a way to joke about my slow speed. I could brag about being old, but I certainly couldn’t brag about being a better hiker than the multitudes who had passed me over the years.
We had two periods of thunderstorms through the day, lots of rumbling and crackling of thunder and some lightning less than a mile away. In between the noisy weather, the sun came out for lunch. Summit Lake was lovely, and we had plenty of time for camp chores and visiting with SOBOs Lee and Jay. RockStar said this had been a day that reminded her why we liked to do "this silly-ness of backpacking.”
Old Lady on the Trail- Triple Crown at 76 Page 44