Yellowstone 2024 - Day 1

Unlike many previous trips we didn’t wake up early to get on the trail. We did not have far to go (only 9 miles) and the park didn’t seem busy, so we decided to take our time. We woke up with the sun and packed our gear up while we ate breakfast. It was cold outside and we were grateful for the heat of the truck when we got in to head out. Even though we didn’t set an alarm we were on the road by 7:15 and reached the trail head a little after 8.

After one last visit to civilized facilities we headed out. The first three miles were on a paved road with a nice gradual decline. About 9:20 we arrived at Lone Star Geyser and learned that we had missed the latest eruption by 2 minutes! The geyser doesn’t have a dependable schedule so its next eruption could be in 10 minutes or it could be in 7 days. We chatted with the hikers there before they headed out. We ate some snacks and stared at the geyser for a while before we decided to head out. We said we’d wait 5 more minutes and started packing our gear up. 3 minutes later the geyser started to erupt! It wasn’t a small eruption! The eruption lasted over 20 minutes! We were quite excited as we sat there staring at a wonder of the world.

Once the geyser eruption finished we logged it in the eruption journal and headed out. Not 5 minutes later we happened upon our first bison. He was minding his own business getting a drink from the stream. He didn’t seem to care about us so we kept our distance and continued down the trail.

After a short bit we came upon a CDT trail maintenance crew. They were fixing part of the trail where it was quite muddy and were putting in a nice dry section. We chatted with them as we went and thanked them for the work to make the trail better.

We were making great time and continued along our way. Not long after we spotted our second bison out in a field eating some grass.

The rest of the hike was uneventful. We passed some day hikers who told us about some geysers on the trail ahead and how they were erupting quite often. We were not taking that fork in the trail today, but would be tomorrow.

We rolled into our lakeside campsite a little after 2 and started setting things up. First you hang your smellables, then you set up your tent, then you go for a swim. The water was cold and refreshing as we waded out into the lake. It didn’t get very deep so we walked out quite a ways. We eventually turned around and headed back to camp after we had been fully refreshed. On the lake shore we hung out and skipped stones while we dried off.

As dinner approached we made wild rice soup and added salmon for protein. It hit the spot and we finished things off with Oreos. We can’t seem to go on a backpacking trip without bringing Oreos.

Until sunset we hung around the lake and food area chatting and relaxing. We were waiting for other hikers to show up, but no one else did. I guess we’d have campsite 8R5 all to ourselves tonight. After the sun went down we crawled into the tent to get some sleep.

Food Journal:

• Breakfast: pop tarts and chocolate covered coffee beans. Good.
• Lunch: two jerky sticks, one slice of jerky, one wheel of cheese, PB pretzels, peanut m&ms, PB m&ms, and trail mix.
• Dinner: wild rice soup with salmon. A snack of protein puffs and dessert of Oreos.
• Next time: don’t get the party size of Oreos, family size is enough. No need for 1 cup of trail mix as 1/2 or 1/3 would do with the other snacks of the day. I like the pretzels, m&ms, and cheese/meat. I only used 2 of the 3 drink mixes. Maybe I would use more drink mixes if it was a harder day.

Battery Journal:

• Watch: 86%
• GPS: 78%
• iPhone: 72%