Continental Divide Trail – Old Faithful to Macks Inn Hike Overview

Back on the official CDT, the trail leaves Old Faithful via a boardwalk through some really cool geothermal features. Mostly, colorful pools and hot springs. Not the kind you soak in though, the melt your skin off kind. After leaving the boardwalk and hitting trail, we left the hoards of tourists behind for good. The trail passes by a lake and some undeveloped geothermal features just before we cross into Idaho. From here to Macks Inn, the trail is rather unremarkable. I did, however, see a bear for the first time since the Gila here. 

Saturday August 25th – CDT Day 127

Got the all you can eat breakfast buffet at old Faithful Inn. Katie and hopeful joined. We talked about our routes going forward and it looks like we’ll be going 3 separate ways after crossing into Idaho. I will be following the Idaho/Montana border, the official CDT. Katie and Hopeful will each be doing some variant of the Big Sky cutoff route. This will save time and allow them some extra days to reach Canada before winter.

The trail leaving old Faithful passes by many geysers, colorful pools, springs and other geothermal features. Touristy, but really neat. This area is called upper geyser basin.

My favorite pool here was Morning Glory. I somehow missed it on my last visit to Yellowstone and it was nice to finally see it. 

The CDT then passes through biscuit basin. More geysers and colorful pools. Past the boardwalk, the CDT continues on into the woods. Now the day’s hiking really begins.

After an uphill climb, the trail levels out. Easy hiking for a while. Ran into two women clearing trees from the trail who worked for the nps. They were kind enough to let us borrow their saw to use as a prop in a picture we asked them to take of the 3 of us.

Reached summit lake and saw old scout here taking a break. We did the same to filter water for the upcoming dry stretch.

The next section was a mix of burned trees and healthy forest. Passed by a couple more hot springs and geothermal features just off the trail. The sulpher smell gave them away and pushed us in the right direction.

Crossed into Idaho around 7:15pm. The border was just a couple of rocks lined up across the trail with a metal Blaze sign reading “welcome to Idaho”.

Hiked a couple more miles to get out of the Yellowstone National Park boundary. Camped a few tenths of a mile past the boundary and had a small fire. This will be my last night together with Katie and hopeful.

Miles – 21
Total Miles – 2103
Rain – no
Sleep – Backcountry, tent
Animals – deer

Sunday August 26th – CDT Day 128

Had some rain from about 4am on. Fortunately, it cleared up as we were waking up at 7am.

We hiked together for another 4 miles before our routes split off. It was a sad moment to leave my friends behind. We had a good run, almost a month together and around 450+ miles. The last month has been the greatest adventure of my life and I was very fortunate to have been able to share that time with Katie and Hopeful.

I pressed on, alone. The Trail followed some degree of dirt road for the rest of the day. In the beginning, the roads were pretty rough and had large berms and pits built into them to prevent Motor Vehicles from using them. However, they were a real annoyance to walk around too.

It was late morning and I needed water. One of the only water sources in the area was Latham spring. It had a side Trail leading down to it from the dirt road I was following. I got about 30 feet away from the spring and scared off a black bear. Medium size, alone. He scampered up the hill and I proceeded to draw my water from the same Source he was drinking from.

The rest of the day was a boring road walk. The roads eventually got wider, flatter and more trafficked. A couple of ATVs went by, then a few cars. Passed by some summer homes, then reached a paved Road. I followed this to hwy 20 where macks inn and island park is located.

Arrived at the Sawtelle Mountain Resort around 3pm. The room was pricey, but I have my bounce box here I need to deal with and with the forecasted cold weather and rain tomorrow, I really don’t want to have to do that in my tent in their Campground.

When I checked in and ask for my boxes, they had not gone up to the post office recently, so they were not there. The woman at the front desk said she’d pick them up in the morning on her way into work. Bummer, I wanted my box tonight. Oh well, tomorrow is a good day to take a zero and avoid some nasty weather. I just don’t have too many Zeros left I can take to reach Canada by October 1st, my goal.

I ate at Connie’s next door. Great Burgers here! It’d be tough to beat that burger at Flagg Ranch but this was up there.

Plotted out the rest of my towns, mileage and days for the rest of the hike on a piece of paper. 840 miles left, 34 days to October 1st. I plan on two more zeros in the towns of Darby and Lincoln. These will be my last two bounce box stops as well. The Revenant was on TV and made for a great background movie to all the planning.

Miles – 22
Total Miles – 2125
Rain – no
Sleep – hotel
Animals – black bear

Monday August 27th – CDT Day 129 (zero day)

The skies were cloudy and it rained on and off this morning. Much colder outside.

Resupplied at the Robin’s Roost grocery store across the street.

Spent the afternoon backing up photo and video, and going through my bounce box. It rained much of the afternoon and evening. This is really great news for all the wildfires burning in the area. Specifically, the Goldestone Fire that has closed a section of the CDT between Leadore and Darby. Hopefully this isn’t an issue when I get there.