Old Faithful, Yellowstone

Day 102

Date: 11.08.2022

CDT Mile: Mile 1'998.0

Miles hiked: 14.4 miles / 23.05 km

Elevations: 1'719 feet ascent (524.9 m Aufstieg) / 817 feet descent (Abstieg 249.10 m)

Camping at: 8'563 feet / 2'611.70 m

It was a very warm night, the total opposite of the last two nights. I guess this is because it was very cloudy and it also rained during the night. In the early morning, the rain stopped, but it started again when I got up. But luckily it stopped raining when I left my tent and packed my pack. I was all prepared and had my rain gear on, but I am still super glad I don't have to hike out in the rain! The day actually got nicer and nicer, and also super hot again in the afternoon. It's about 4 miles to Old Faithful Village and we have been looking forward to the breakfast buffet there since days! Cheetah and Captain leave camp about 15 minutes ahead of Mouse, Otter and me. However, I hiked a little faster and lost sight of Otter and Mouse when reaching the Village. As I knew we are all heading to the breakfast buffet, I didn't wait but hiked straight to the Old Faithful Snow Lodge. There, I run into Spice, a hiker of our hiker family who left us to pick up a box in Grant Village yesterday. He is waiting for us, but hasn't seen Cheetah or Captain yet. Strange, I must have passed them on trail without noticing. We got a table for 6 people at the restaurant and started to fill our belly's with yummy bacon, scrambled eggs, biscuits and gravy, fruit salad, sausages and french toasts. But still no sign of the rest of our group. I started to get more and more nervous. There is no service in this Village. I get wifi only at the breakfast room and send Cheetah a whatsapp message but it never reaches her. My text messages don't work here. I was sure this is the only place to get the breakfast buffet in the Village. At least I am with Spice and not alone. He tries to reach out to Mouse via his Garming inReach Satellite communication device, but we also don't get any response. That's weird and worries me more. I was looking forward to this breakfast since days and now I can't really enjoy it, as I don't know where my trail family is! After breakfast Spice and I went to the only grocery store to resupply and may run into our tramily. But also here no sign of them. We meet other hikers, Veggie & Karma and Yeti & Carbomb, but no one has seen them! It is a very touristy place with hundreds of people and hence we could easily miss each other. At 11am the famous Old Faithful Geyser is erupting,and I thought the best chance to run into them will be there, as for sure they are watching this spectacle as well. Old faithful erupts every 90 minutes, give or take. But there are hundreds of tourists, how can we find the group? As we walk through the tourists, we can still not find them. We try our luck at the Old Faithful Lodge, but also there we can't find them. Sitting outside for a short break and thinking of hiking out, Mouse finally texts back on her garmin, saying they are at the Old Faithful Inn. Gosh, there are so many Old Faithful places here! I get there and finally run into them! Apparently this is the more fancy place for the breakfast buffet, I didn't even know that two places serve buffet. But this place is really stunning! A massive wood building with a huge firepit and three floors. I finally rejoin with my tramily, both sides very happy to see each other again! What a mess! I sneak a free shower at the hotel😊 I 'stole' a towel from the cleaning cart in the hallway and looked for the women's bathrooms, which have showers with shampoo, conditioner and soap for the hotel guest's (no private bathrooms in hotelroom, which is our luck!🤭) The shower felt great, even if my clothes are still super stinky!😂 We hang out at this beautiful place for a couple of hours, I dried out all my gear, got more food and coffee, before we finally headed out to see Old Faithful again at 2.15pm. I hiked out with Cheetah and Captain, taking the boardwalk through the upper geyser basin (not the official CDT, but one is stupid if not hiking this way!). It was absolutely amazing, even so being around so many people feels very strange and exhausting. Either you feel like a hero (like hotel staff treated us), or like a zoo animal (the way most tourists look at us!). Some tourists wanted to talk to us and know all about the trail, which is sweet, but also we want to hike on. A women even wanted to give us money, which we refused! And then she screamed out 'Hey people, these are some really though guys, they are hiking the Continental Divide trail, all the way from the Mexican Boarder to Canada. Here they are!'. Well great, thanks for all that unwanted attention! 🙈 we made sure we keep on moving. But it was an amazing walk and beeing in Yellowstone, for which I was looking forward to when starting the trail already, we took our time, specially as we only have to hike about 10 more miles and as we had to stop every minute to take pictures!

As we slowly left the attraction area the trail got more and more empty, till finally there was only us left again. Breath! Too many people in one place! The trail climbs pretty steep but not that long. But it was really hot and my clean and nice smelling skin from the shower a couple of hours ago is covered with sweat again in no time. However, it is a beautiful hike. The trail nicely prepared, smooth and cleaned from all blowdowns makes it easy to get the miles done. Reaching the designated campsite from the yellowstone national park, it is full with CDT hikers. There's the famous family with the 5 kids (however, they hiked on 1 more mile to give us room), 4 Sobo hikers, and all the Nobo hikers: Cheetah and Captain, Mouse, Vista, Spice, Onion, Smoothie, Otter and me! What a group! We enjoy a nice evening till dark with chatter and guitar tunes, a really nice day on trail today!

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