It was nice to sleep in a little, or at least get up when my body was ready to face the day.  We both slept well - I think I fell asleep in under 5 minutes last night, which is rare for me.

We left the campground with Mary around 7:15 and headed back to Dubois so we could have both cell service and Wi-Fi (we had neither at the campground).  We ended up at a bakery around 8am, which is when Nick called the Yellowstone Backcountry Office to talk with Howard about the camping permits. They were on the phone discussing the route we were going to take for over an hour and a half.  Nick had a lot of different maps open on our computer, which made it easier to figure things out (we are so grateful Mark and Mary were around so we could use it). Still - 90 minutes seems like a long time.  

While Nick was on the phone, I sent in the rest of the blog info to Theresa.  It feels good to be caught up - I hate having things hanging over my head.

The good news is that we have a route through Yellowstone with camping permits secured.  I’m excited - we’ll be spending 5 nights in Yellowstone and taking different, hopefully less travelled routes through the park.  

It was after 10 by the time Nick decided he was ready to get back on the trail.  As Mary diligently drove us there (she’s a saint), it started raining.  I hoped the rain wouldn’t last long. 

While we were getting out of the truck and putting on our packs, a car drove up and a guy got out and walked right over to us.  It turns out he was doing some research on hiking and wanted to ask us some questions.  Nick didn’t really participate, but I was happy to.  I stood there, in the rain with my pack on, while Ernesto asked me all sorts of questions.  It was fun. My favorite was when he asked if hiking was my activity of choice - no, no it is not.  :)

When Nick and I finally got back on the trail, it was close to 11:30 and raining hard.  I do not mind hiking in the rain - in fact, I enjoy it.  I DO mind a sloppy, slippery, muddy trail, though.  I don’t think I’ve ever hiked a trail so muddy!  Nick and I both decided that hiking in the mud is just as slow and as taxing as hiking in the snow - perhaps even more so.  It was ridiculous, really.  You know how sometimes you walk through mud and it sticks to your shoe and then to itself, and pretty soon it looks like you are wearing a shoe made of mud?  That was us.  I think I accumulated a few pounds of mud on both feet.  (I wanted to take a picture but my hands were covered in gloves and it would have been too much effort).

The rain briefly let up a few times, but for the most part it rained steadily until 4pm.  Because of the rain, sadly we didn’t get too many views of the interesting mountains.  

(This is probably for the best as it means I don’t have a lot of pictures to sort through tonight).  Here is what I was able to see:

Because of the rain and the muddy trail, Nick and I walked together most of the afternoon-  apparently mud puts us at the same painfully slow pace.  Later in the afternoon, when the rain stopped, Nick and I were separated for a while.  Since there were too many trees to easily see bears, I started randomly yelling out “heyyyy OH”, just to make my presence known (I find it’s easier to get some real volume behind “hey oh” than “hey bear”.  

One I yelled out and, surprisingly, got a “heyyy OH” in response.  A group of about 12 teenage boys was hiking together and they, too, were randomly yelling out to make their presence known.  When I met them, I was going downhill and they were going up, so, since they had the right of way, I started to move off trail.  Instead, all 12 of them instantly hopped off the trail for me, all at the same time.  No hesitation whatsoever.  They don’t know it, but they made me feel like a queen.  A very wet, muddy queen, but a queen nonetheless. 

Two more groups of boys passed us, going in the opposite direction (i assume they were all part of some massive camping trip).  I got off the trail for them first, though - it’s easier for one person to move aside than it is for 12.  

We stopped to eat dinner around 7, and then hiked until we found a good campsite.  There was a great campsite on the other side of South Buffalo Fork River, but someone was already there.  It’s for the best - we had to ford the river (our second of the day) and since our feet were already soaked we figured we should cross tonight.  As a bonus, we were able to wash all the mud off our legs and shoes while we walked across. 

Let’s hope it doesn’t rain and that the trail is mostly mud free tomorrow!  We need to hike bigger miles if we are going to get to our first Yellowstone campsite on time.  

Along the Trail:

Camp: