CDT Day 72 (7/29/23)
Miles 1760.6 (Red line 1984.2)- 1783.6 (Red line 2007.2) (23.2 miles)
Verbatim
I exited Yellowstone and walked into Idaho today. :) :) :) Yellowstone sucks! I’d like to come back but only with a car and in the wintertime. Then it will seem wild to think of all the animals surviving in the cold…
Old Faithful Village was meh. I ate too much at the buffet (I had to, it’s my job to eat too much) and that ruined the breakfast experience. I saw Sorority Steve (Hah!). I, at the behest of Raider and ET, through What’s App, snuck upstairs and took a shower in the lodge’s communal shower room. I felt like throwing up the whole time. And, I was so desperate to poop. The stalls were in use and I nearly died waiting I think. I really did feel terrible. So terrible that I sat down in the communal shower stall. Yuck! My shower took a loooooong time. :)
I talked with some south bounders at dinner today. I ate another egg sandwich and it was gawd awful. The general store foods in Yellowstone are terrible. Pack your own lunch! But, the local ice cream brand is actually really good. Anyways, that egg sandwich was dry and made me feel bleh. The SOBOs (Blackbeard and Dr. Zah) said that they’d hiked 850 miles since Canada. Do I only have 850 miles left? That’d make this trail shorter than the PCT for me. Dang!
I was able to buy some Welches fruit snacks from the general store. Those are yummy! I think I’ll be fruit snacking it hard the rest of this trail.
It got cold last night! And, I think it may get cold again tonight. Nice! I have the most glorious cowboy camp here in the woods. There are, wait for it…………… NO MOSQUITOES! It’s actually an incredible feeling. Last night was so bad. Tonight feels like heaven. I’m not overheating to a buzzing white symphony of wings. I’m just resting. Who even needs the zero I’m taking with Chuck and Loraine on Monday?! If the rest of the trail is like this I will be in heaven. I’ve been at camp for twenty minutes and have only seen three mosquitoes. Oh, and I killed those suckers. Just got one of em in fact. One shot one kill each time. Line em up and knock em down.
Post Note
I met Sorority Steve on the PCT with L. What a funny memory. It was at a pass in Washington. The day had been horribly smokey due to wildfire. I remember feeling sick as a result. It was bad. L’s mom was coming to pick us up for a zero. Attempting a hitch was Sorority Steve and three female hikers. They’d been sitting in the smoke all day, apparently, unsuccessful with their hitch and all felt really sick. The sun was well into setting when L and I go to the pass. L’s mom showed up shortly thereafter. We only had room for two more, but were willing to take half of them west with us towards Seattle. They declined, not wanting to split the group, and insisted upon hitching east towards Yakama. Yakama was really far away. I remember thinking that it was all so foolish. How could they have spent all day trying and failing to hitch? And if they were so desperate then why wouldn’t they split the group?
And then here was Sorority Steve, in the flesh, in Yellowstone. We journaled together in the movie theater of Old Faithful Village’s visitor center. It turns out he’d flipped from NM when the Colorado snowpack was still thick. I came across a comment he left at the Chief Mountain Terminus when I finished the trail. I’ll quote it below. Let me find it…
“Let the 2023 SNOWbo flip-flop begin. Long live NOBO’s. Crush miles and bang SOBOs. All love *peace emoji* - Sorority Steve”
That made me laugh when I saw it. I hope you found whoever you were looking for out there Sorority Steve. Thanks for staying on the NOBO team.
This is the sort of trail culture, and human experience, which makes thruhiking so much fun. Who is this random guy? Who am I to get to see him in such a unique space? He’s awesome! He does strike me as a bit foolish, maybe. But that’s ok. I’m foolish out on trail too. I sleep every night with the mosquitoes. That’s intimately foolish.
I cannot express the relief when I realized I was in a new state and camping without bugs. There wasn’t anything unusual about where I was camped. I was just in the trees. Back in Yellowstone I’d camped in the trees and it had been hell. But now I was in Idaho, and apparently things were different here. Had the plague passed? Could I be alone while I slept? Did it all just turn in the blink of an eye? In twenty miles?