July 16, 2021
Miles: 33.4 miles
Steps: 71,553
Got to sleep in this morning because I needed to call into the Yellowstone permit office again. They don’t open until 8am so I that’s why I slept in until 7am.
I ended up camping down at Brooks Lake which is about a quarter of a mile from the lodge. So at 8am I walked back up to call and again but no one picked up so left another message to go along with my email yesterday. I guess technically I don’t have a permit until I talk to someone in person but I’ve done about all I could.
So I got to hiking. Got back to the lake and ended up helping a guy get his kayak off his truck then chatted with him for a little bit then I was off. He did warn me I would be entering into grizzly country and should be aware.
Getting started at 8:30am made me wonder if I was going to be able to get in 33 miles for the day, the profile map didn’t look too bad but never now how well maintained the trail will be.
I had 3 miles back to the official CDT which was pretty easy as I went around the lake then headed off for the upper lake where I joined the CDT. From there I slowly made my way up and down through the woods. I did have a few blow downs to deal with but nothing too bad.
The sky was much clearer today. There was a small storm that rolled in last night as I was falling asleep so that probably cleared up the air of the smoke.
I made my way down to the valley where I followed a creek before making my way up and over a small mountain and into another valley. Walking along the valley floor made hiking much easier as the trail was flat and level so made great time. At times the trail was very wide and looked like a dirt road but no tire marks, only human and animal tracks to be seen. I kept looking for bear tracks but didn’t see any. I mainly just saw shoe, horse and dog prints.
I did come across 3 really big moose on the other side of this small lake. I could tell they wanted me out of there. I saw several deer during the day. Also, saw a beaver swimming in a stream.
I did have a short uphill climb before stopping for dinner. Now that I’m in grizzly country there will be no more eating where I camp. I’ve been pretty good up to this point.
The last few miles on the day were pretty nice with views all around. The only bad part was the mosquitos. They were not an issue until the last part. I was hiking by lots of water sources.
Tomorrow I’ll enter into Yellowstone National Park. Been looking forward to this for awhile so I hope it’s as wonderful of a place as I’ve heard.