Into The Heart (Lake) Of Yellowstone

Late last night a few deer decided to visit my campsite. Deer may look graceful but they sound like a truck driving through the woods. It was loud and I didn’t sleep very well. I still woke up pretty early and got to hiking.

It rained for an hour or two last night and a lot of the vegetation near the trail was wet, so I got wet too. Not a really fun way to start the da, but at least I fared better than this guy.

I picked up the head and it was HEAVY. I can’t believe elk move around with all that weight up there. Definitely one of the cooler trail finds I’ve had too.

The trail followed some rivers for a bit and eventually made it to Heart Lake, a large lake inside the park. I went to one of the designated campsites to have lunch and had this great view all to myself.

From there, the trail went along the lake and I started to see more people. They were all going to be camping somewhere around the lake.

After leaving the lake, there was a pretty big climb and I noticed the water in my bottle was getting warm in the sun. At the next creek I dumped it out and dipped my bottle into the river… and it was a hot spring.

Not far upstream I started to see some more familiar thermal features like colored springs and boiling water.

I looked at my app to see where the next water was and it was miles away. I would make it to the road before then and I still had several hours to hike in the heat with no water. I filled my bottle with the hot water and kept hiking.

Luckily, I ran into a couple not too long after and they had some extra water. I tried the hot water and it tasted terrible. I’m glad I didn’t have to drink it.

When I made it to the road, it took a long time to get a ride. Tourists don’t give people rides because they don’t know about the trail. Eventually I did get a ride and my water filter fell out in their car and I didn’t notice until I was at the campground in Grant Village.

Another hiker had just gotten a new filter and offered me his old one. This should at least get me through to a town where I can buy a filter or have one shipped.

A few of the hikers made a fire at the campground and we cooked hot dogs. At my site I found a bag of marshmallows in the bear box, so we had those too. It was a fun night meeting some new people and then Caddyshack and FeelGood showed up!!

It’s been a couple weeks since I hiked with them so it should be great having the gang back together. (Mostly anyway)