I woke up to the 4am alarm, but no sooner had I awoken than a thunderstorm rolled in. I’m willing to pack up in the dark, but no way I’m going to pack up in a thunderstorm and get all the dry stuff wet. I slept in until the storm passed and the rain stopped at 5:45.
The storm was immediately followed by a heavy cold wind. So I needed extra time to dry the wet stuff that I could (and water had pooled under my mattress and under my pack from where my Tyvek had caught it, being more waterproof than the sheet it replaced, but I have an idea to stop that from happening in the future) and I had to stop packing frequently to warm my hands when I lost feeling in them. As such, it was almost 7:30 by the time I hit the trail again. It was still cold enough I kept my down puff jacket on for most of the morning.
All night and morning I could hear the distant bleating of sheep, but I was only a mile in when I actually came upon the herd. Two of the sheepdogs came up to see me and then returned to the herd. A couple of minutes later, I saw a Latino man on a horse with a horse and some dogs with him who said he was taking care of the sheep.
Right after that, I had to throw my Packa on because it was raining again, though it only lasted a moment. Soon, I arrived at Rock Spring and stopped to take my jacket off and take a morning break. I took another morning break a couple of hours later at the top of a hill when the sun came out and there was a brief bout of blue skies. The water in the grass along the trail had soaked through my boots and then my socks, so I changed into relatively dry socks here and hung the wet ones on my pack.
Although they managed to dry somewhat throughout the day, it wasn’t fast or thorough because the blue skies were rapidly replaced by the ever-present smoky haze.
I saw a couple of grouse beside the trail. I saw three fly off the trail in the afternoon too. That’s the most grouse I’ve ever seen in a single day.
Of course, when I came to the creek where I had been waiting to collect water, I saw more sheep in one view than I’ve seen in my life total. And some goats and, of course, the loyal but skittish dogs protecting the flock. I sent the flock into chaos and disarray on my way through. I scooped up some water from the creek, but I carried it far enough away over the hill that even the most egregious sheep couldn’t see me before hooking up the filter. The sheep may be gregarious, but they aren’t particularly friendly, and they smell. I didn’t want to eat my lunch around them.
Oh yeah, I was starving at this point. I sat on a rock and took an hour lunch while my phone charged and my water filtered. Then on again, up a steep climb, and then down.
Mostly the trail was going along the sides of the ridges leading down from Baldy Mountain here. I stopped once on a random rock in the hillside for my afternoon break. I decided against getting my Packa out when I left to give my socks a little bit longer in what little sun was getting through the haze and trees, but a mile or so later, the ominous dark clouds had gotten close enough and thick enough that I stopped to put up the socks and put on the Packa. From there, the trail pitched steeply downward toward Aldous Lake.
On the steep descent, I met “Metric Ton, a nobo LASHer – Long-Ass Section Hiker” to quote the man himself. It had just started raining and I was stopped to zip up the coat and put my hood up, looking down instead of ahead, so he spooked with his shouted greeting from below.
We chatted about the usual pleasantries and hiker small talk–names, places of origin, gear problems and suggestions, the weather–but all I could think of the whole twenty minutes until he finally got his raingear on and got around to taking the picture he had asked for was that he was keeping me from getting to the trailhead and eating dinner.
Further down the hill, I came to a creek overrun by huckleberries that seemed ripe. I tried one, but huckleberries are always kind of meh until you put a bunch together and add sugar.
When I arrived at Aldous Lake, I started seeing the day hikers. It’s a very popular little day trail. There was a whole family gathered on the bank, one older boy throwing a line in the water. The mom told me which side of the fork was the trail ahead. Another family with a pair of dogs stood near the bridge over the inlet stream. They told me there were little cutthroats in the lake, and also sent me the correct direction from the fork they were standing in.
A mile later, I started seeing a lot of salmonberry bushes along the trail and some of them were ripe and exquisitely sweet. Salmonberries absolutely taste great on their own, better than raspberries even, though they do share the problem of getting seeds stuck in your teeth even if you’re careful not to chew them.
I soon realized there would have been even more ripe salmonberries along the way when I caught up to a couple coming out with huge packs after an overnighter at the lake. The girl was carrying a zip-lock full of them. When I got to the trailhead, I signed the register, then went over to the parking lot just as the girl went into the privy, leaving the man to load their packs into the truck. He confirmed that they would make a pie from the berries and something else too. He said Winco used to sell bottles of them for 25 dollars, confirming what I had inferred about how hard they were to find. They had to be picked in the wild and their growing season is extremely short.
Anyway, I was starving again, but it was raining and I didn’t want to make dinner in the rain. Fortunately, the privy at this trailhead was the kind with a little 3/4 enclosed, covered porch of sorts in front of the door. I could sit in there under the roof, far enough from the door not to block it to anyone who needed it, but still entirely protected from the wind and rain. And, in fact, no one needed the privy for the half-hour I was under there.
It was still sprinkling slightly when I returned to the trail and began the climb back up to the divide, but it fell off within the next half hour, and the last hour of hiking it didn’t rain at all. I grabbed some water out of the next creek and hung the reservoir from my neck to avoid having to take my pack off and remove and reattach the Packa, so even though I wasn’t getting rained on, I did have the swinging bag of water constantly bouncing off my chest. Of course, once I was up the steep, slippery mud hill, the trail came out into a grassy meadow. A wet grassy meadow that wanted my boots, socks, and feet to experience that wetness too. I didn’t want to stop until I found that perfect spot again, but I was also eager to get those wet socks off and let my feet dry. I’ve heard that trenchfoot has been known to impede hiking somewhat.
Ironically, the perfect spot turned out to be right next to a creek much further on, so I needed have carried that water up the hill around my neck at all. I started it filtering as soon as I had my tent erected (always the priority when you don’t know what the weather is up to) but because I hadn’t cleared the last of the bubbles from the line, it still hadn’t finished by the time I had everything else ready to go. All I could think about was getting my boots off, but I couldn’t go to bed without that water. I went back and got the bubble out and it finished right up.
Finally, I could get in my tent and take off my boots… but no. It was at this moment I discovered a knob of wood, a broken stump of a sapling or errant vertical root that had been hiding in the grass exactly where I had pitched. I couldn’t move it and there’s no way I could sleep on it, even if it didn’t pop my mattress. I had to move the tent. Which is quite a difficult task with a non-freestanding tent already full of all my stuff. It took another 20 minutes. I was half an hour late getting to bed, all told. But I got it done, and done to an extent that all would be dry if more night storms rolled through.
I turned in finally, hoping for an early start and unmolested by storms and a mostly dry day of hiking. That’s what I needed to be able to get the miles done.
Trail miles: 19.0
Distance to West Yellowstone: 60.7 miles
looking down on a cloud 
probably a lovely campsite when the wood isn’t soaking wet 
like all chipmunks, its name is Chippy 
tree cancer 
it’s finally huckleberry season 
Aldous Lake 
the raspberry proliferation continues