It seems like every morning I wake up at about 4:30, decide I don’t need to get that early if a start and snooze for awhile. Today I decided to get up and start moving so I could get to town as early as possible.
Looking at my upcoming water sources, I noticed a comment about a cow calf that had been killed in the area by a grizzly. That meant more bear activity than usual. I wasn’t too worried until I started seeing grizzly footprints everywhere!
It turned out there was nothing to worry about and I hiked through without seeing anything but some deer and a few cows. It’ll take some getting used to, but hiking in grizzly country is perfectly safe.
I saw my first southbound thru hiker and we talked about the potential grizzly in the area. After we departed, I realized he had been hiking in grizzly territory the whole time and he was almost done! He was so unconcerned he even had headphones in while he was hiking. (Just one though)
I had 20 miles to get to town when I started the day and the last 10 were on gravel roads. That made the hiking fast and I got some great views of the mountains ahead.
I made it down to the road just after noon, but it took a little time to get a ride. The guy who picked me up had never heard of the trail and was pretty shocked at what I was doing. He seemed pretty excited to learn about the trail and it was a lot of fun explaining all the logistics to him.
When I got into town, I found out that Feel Good and Caddyshack were still in town! They were going to head out the next day and road walk back to the trail, since their alternate route on the trail had brought them right into town.
It was great to see them again after so long. They’re going to head out early tomorrow and hopefully we’ll meet up at camp.
I’m just going to relax in my hotel room before heading off to Yellowstone tomorrow.