Well 2 days ago we woke up to a slight drizzle here in town. The radar didn't show much so we decided to head up to the trailhead to see what was up. The rain picked up as we headed north but we figured we would check things out. We headed back the dirt road as the weather started to clear and by the time we got to the trail, we were really thinking we could get the ride in, that was until we checked out the trail tread, two steps on the dirt and we knew we were done as the mud stuck to our shoes like peanut butter. We headed back to town and went into the park and finished up the northern loop that we had started the day before. It had rained more up in the mountains that night so we decided to head into the park yesterday and do the southern loop. This is the one with Old Faithful as well as a couple of amazing waterfalls on the Yellowtone river, and most of the thermal activity. Its an amazing place, I would highly recommend anybody that has a chance to check it out to do so.
Today we wanted to give the northern stuff a bit more time to dry out and we will also be going right by it on our way to Bozeman tomorrow and theres enough room to leave the truck and trailer at the trailhead. So today we checked out the Continental Divide Trail that crossed Rt 20 just south of West Yellowstone. The plan was to do an out n back, 10 miles each way to the high point. It started as jeep trail, then down to an old double track, nice views but a few quarter mile hike-a-bikes. There were some nice views but not alot of sun.
After about 7 miles the trail turned to singletrack, climbing at a reasonable grade, across meadows and through forested sections. At just about the 10 mile point we hit a first for the trip, some snow flurries. Our altitude wasn't what the one guide book said it should be, I think they re-routed it since the book was published, but we got to about 10.25 miles in and the trail started down a bit so we stopped to re-evaluate. As Howie was eating his fluffer nutter, he spied a critter down below us in the meadows. I thought at first it was just another mule deer but got out the video camera and Howie his camera. We both came to the same conclusion, it was the first moose we had seen this trip. Just after that, the flurries picked up and we decided that we should really start back. So on went the jackets, I had already gone with warmer gloves.
The way back was pretty uneventful, the flurries waxing and waning for a while then quiting all together. All told, a bit over 20 miles with somewhere in the neighborhood of 3500 feet of climbing.