June 18-19 - Yellowstone

Yellowstone. I left Dillon in the morning and headed to Bozeman for supplies at Costco and Walmart, then into Yellowstone. I stopped in West Yellowstone to have the sparkplugs replaced in my car. Still no help.

When I got my sparkplugs replaced there was a kid there with more severe car trouble who needed to leave his car overnight. He was working at the Old Faithful lodge and I offered him a ride since that was where the backcountry office was.

The first night I spent in first night at the campground in Lewis Lake. It wasn't anything special and I don't have any pictures from there. Almost got a fire going, but it started to rain and I jumped in my tent early as the fire smoldered out.

	This is a the Shoshone Lake trail head with all my gear ready to put in the backpack and head out.
	The start of the hike.
	Some pictures along the early part of the trail. One spot was a water crossing along a log. Had to keep good balance or have wet feet for the rest of the day. I made it across.
	The entire forest still looks burned out from the fires in 1988 (16 years ago!). Just a lesson that even though things recover from devistation, they require patience.
	After about 4.5 miles I made it to the lake and stopped and had a bite to eat.
	Hiked a little further and came to this stream crossing. I didn't have an sandles or reef shoes and had been looking in stores. Wal-Mart didn't have any good ones and the last Target and REI I saw was in Missoula, MT in a hail storm. Didn't think I would find what I was looking for there. I took my boots off, tied them on my pack, picked up a big stick for balance and headed across barefoot. Sharp rocks and I oh, ah, oh, ah'd all the way across, but made it to the other side. Immediately as I got to the other side, about 1000 mosquitos greeted me and I swatted away as I put my boots back on. I got my pack on and started moving again. A cloud of mosquitos followed me for the next 4-5 miles and if I stopped I could swat 5 at a time on each shoulder. As a last resort, I put on some repellant and it kept them away for about 20 minutes. That stuff is really bad for you and just doesn't work very well.
	Also, the next four miles I probably had to climb over about 50 trees down across the trail. These are the last of the pictures for the day.
	I got to a fork in the trail that was at least two miles past the camp site. I must have missed it. Looked closer at my map and made my way back to where it was. Searched and searched and searched and did not find the camp site or the bear pole. I finally decided that without a bear pole I could not safely stay here, so I decided to pack out. The mosquitos made this decision a little easier. As soon as I got back accross the stream crossing I laid down in relief from the massive swarm of mosquitos, ate a little bit and took a short nap in the sun. All told, this made the day a 24 mile hike with my 35-38 pound pack. I had two days food in it so it was probably closer to 38. I didn't get back to my car until 4:45 and didn't make the ranger station until after it closed. I drove to Morris camp ground and got one of the last sites. It's a bigger more developed camp ground. I went to church the next morning in the camp ground amphetheatre and had I nice message about patience. It completely validated my thoughts about being patient with recovery after devistation. The thoughts I had had while walking through the burned out forests. I was very sore the next day and decided on doing the geyser tour with 50 million other people. Basically a car tour. I got another backcountry pass for a site that was only a mile off the road.

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