CDT sobo Targhee Pass to West Yellowstone

Day 36

13 miles to the road. After 5 I eat my last bit of food: a pack of tuna. Almost there. When I hit the highway, I start to understand what people said about this hitch: the cars are flying by. Tourists. You’d think they’re more likely to pick you up, but not in my experience.

What can I do? I muster my best smile, brush some dirt off my shorts and extend my thumb. 3 cars speed by. An RV (no chance). 2 trucks. A whole chain of cars. My phone pings and I get a text. From another hiker, about bears. I grin a little wider about his joke.

And then I hear a car behind me. A white Jeep without doors, turned around to pick me up!

„West Yellowstone?“ „yeah that’s perfect!“

I throw my pack in a climb on the backseat, a woman with two dark braids – just like mine – turns around and extends her hand: „Barbara“ – „I’m Maja“. Her husband is Peter. They didn’t know about the CDT, they just saw me standing there and wanted to help me out. Kindness. There’s so much kindness if you know where to look?

The side of a highway for example.

The radio plays Animal by the Neon trees. The wind is so loud, I can’t hear a thing.

Day 37

It’s dark by the time I drop my pack on a dirt road. Not the best spot to spend the night but I’m too tired to continue hiking. Shouldnt have dilly-dallied in town until 5 pm, but then again, if there’s good company to hang around with, why not? The trail isn’t going anywhere. Winter in Colorado is still ages away. It was worth getting behind schedule.

I quickly set up camp on the hard ground and grab my pack. But when I turn around to my tent, I freeze.

What is this? Tiny little butterflies are sitting on my tent. Dozens of them. I look down on my backpack. More. There’s one on my shoulder. Five on my legs. I try to wave them away but they’re insisting on sitting on my stuff and me.

I’ve never seen anything like this before. And why at night? I fail to keep them away and end up with a few in my tent, where they’re flying around my face, realising they made a mistake. But outside it seems like more of them are coming. There are hundreds of butterflies covering my shoes, my tent lines, the mesh door. Tiny white butterflies. Or are they moths?

Day 38

I wake up to a growl. What is this? A bear? So it‘s true what they say about Yellowstone. I hear the growl again, but this time I can also feel it.

It’s my stomach! I’m hungry. I look at my watch: 2 am. I ignore the growling for half an hour before I give up, put on my shoes and scavenge through my bear can in the moonlight.

The next morning, it rains. Real rain. For the first time since the Bob. Not just a thunderstorm or a brief shower. Just grey, warm rain. „Don’t complain“ I scold myself, „just yesterday you couldn’t stand the heat.“

By the afternoon, the sun has returned. It’s warm in the shade and there are no bugs for once. Except little curious ants, but I don’t mind them crawling over me.

I take off my shoes and fall asleep on my foam pad at the Yellowstone border. I nap for almost two hours before the voices of two other sobos wake me. Life is good. Life is good. The CDT is good. A mile before summit lake the air is filled with sulphur smell.

Day 39

The 4 am alarm ends my peaceful sleep brutally. I could sleep for days lately. But there’s one thing better than sleep: food.

Breakfast buffet to be precise.

Only 9.8 miles separate me from bottomless coffee, crispy bacon and french toast drowned in syrup. Calories? ALL OF THEM, please.

„I need to get my bear can“ I think and unzip my tent. „It’s still really dark though. Is it a good idea to walk by myself in the dark through grizzly country?“ I lay back down.

„I won’t even be able to see the bears in the dark anyways. Meh. I’ll leave at 5“.

An hour later I’m darting through YNP in the light of my headlamp while the sun slowly rises. I should get to the Old Faithful Inn before 8 am. But my thoughts of food are interrupted: smoke!

Or more precise steam, shooting up from the ground. One, two, five of them. The geysers! Just a few days ago a geyser had blown up in biscuit basin and the CDT had been rerouted. I thought I’d be missing out but the whole area is full of them.

Today, today I feel like a little kid under the Christmas tree. This is my version of Disneyland. Water boiling, rocks in all kinds of shades and formations that look like they belong on foreign planets.

Anyways, here’s what you gonna do at Old Faithful:

1. Get the breakfast buffet. It’s not as good as at the timberline lodge but it’s good enough for your hiker hunger 🥓
2. Leave your backpack at the front desk (honestly all the staff is so sweet and loves hikers)
3. Go on the second floor, down the corridor with the rooms. There are showers in the bathrooms. You can be a dirt bag and snag a towel from the house keeping carts. Shampoo and (real) conditioner in the showers 🚿
4. There are outlets on the ground in front of the balcony windows on the second floor
5. Take the boardwalk to see the geysers. I know you don’t like extra miles off the red line surrounded by muggles. But it’s seriously cool
6. General store sells frozen joghurt (almost a litre) for 9$
7. Snow lodge lounge WiFi password is yellowstone
8. Shoshone Geyser Basin slaps, the trail passes really close to a bunch of active ones. Had the whole area to myself in the evening (for sunset lighting, sobos camp at 8T1 – Basin Beach) 🏖️