Thorofare: Day Five & Six

It's another week of overtime for me, so I am getting in a lot of hours at work, but at the same time I am getting a few things done around the house as well. I will talk about those things tomorrow though. Today I am gonna finish up the Thorofare trip. I am combinding day five and six because day six was only about 5 hours long and consisted of very little. Here goes...

Picking up where we left off, we were in a ferocious life & death fight with a pack of wolves, bears, lions and a small woodchuck named Gregory. Just then an eagle swooped in and saved the paniced hikers.... No wait, that's not right - it went something more like this:

When we awoke in the morning around 6:30 the wolves were howling again. This time we could hear the pack across the valley and a lone wolf howling behind us somewhere up the creek we were camping by. There was frost on the ground again and the tents had ice on them from the dew. We started a fire and got some water boiling on the stoves so we could have a cup of oatmeal and some hot apple cider. We were out of hot cocoa so apple cider was the next choice. We had camp picked up by 9:30 and we were on the trail around 9:45 for our final leg of the trek. It was only about 10 miles to the campsite we planned on staying at and we knew the campsite wouldn't be far from our pickup site the next morning. We stopped a few times along the way to eat some wild raspberries.

We made it to the campsite around 6:00 pm. The temperature wasn't exactly hot, but a dip in Yellowstone Lake was too tempting to pass up. That is until I got in about knee deep! WHOA, that wasn't as warm and relaxing as I thought it was going to be. I continued to wade and splash about in the waves for the next 10-15 minutes until I finally decided that the cool waters were going to win this battle. I can't say that I went swimming in Yellowstone Lake, but I can atleast claim to have waded about for awhile. Theresa managed to swim for about 2 minutes before finding the water to be a little cold.

We had camp set up and food on the stoves by 7:30. We watched the sun go down over Yellowstone Lake; as we gazed into the skies to the south we could see a storm building...We put the rain fly on the tent and zipped up for a rainy night - knowing it would only be a matter of time before the rain was falling. However, about 10:00 it wasn't the rain I was hearing - rather the wind rustling the tree branches. Slow and weak at first, then a little stronger and the branches quicked their swaying, until finally the wind was up to a low howl and the trees began to groan under the force. By this time the rain was falling quite violently and the raindrops were the large kind that really make a 'thump' when then land on the ground or on your head. I poked my head out of the tent to check the progress of the storm and decided that the dead trees around the campsite just didn't look safe enough to stay under. Lucky for us J.R. and John had set up their tent on the rocky shore line and there were no trees threatening to flatten us into pancakes. Laura yelled at her mom and Theresa and we made a b-line for the 'safe' tent. We managed to fit 6 adults into a 6x4 tent. How? I have no clue - but when J.R. looked at the shoreline and said the waves crashing into the rocks were around 2-3 feet high I decided I was glad I wasn't in a boat and trying to get to shore...

The storm let up after 15-20 minutes of wide-eyed wonderment. Most of the time I was wondering if any trees were going to fall, but a few times I thought back to a passage I read from a book that was at the Thorofare Cabin.

The passage spoke of the Hayden expedition (I think) in 1871 that took row boats across the lake during the winter. It took them all day and night to do it and during the night a storm caught them while they were nearing shore. When they landed the expedition leader wrote what he saw - that being ice upon everyone, formed from the crashing waves and the men had to thaw out their beards which were heavy and full of ice. Don't quote me on that - I wish I would have taken note of the quote when I saw it, but looking back it would have been an amazing sight to see.

The next morning we packed up camp for a short 1 mile hike to our pick up spot - we arrived around 9:30 and after entertaining ourselves for a few hours we were back in the boat and motoring our way across the lake. After being in the water the night before I was glad the boat didn't sink because swimming to shore in that cold water just didn't sound good... But we made it back to shore and then we went to Lake Lodge and ate at the cafeteria. Never before has such terrible food tasted SO good! Not that the there is anything wrong with the food at the cafeteria, but I wouldn't make an effort to stop there and eat - well, in this case I guess I did, but whatever.. All I know is I wasn't eatting out of a blue aluminum cup and I didn't have oatmeal floating in my drink! We went to the Lake General Store and had ice cream before hitting the road and making our way back to Missoula.

Laura and I drove to Helena for the night so we could geocache all day Saturday around the capital city. We ended up finding 38 caches for the trip and had a nice 'short' drive as well. It ended up being about 900 miles, but that's nice when considering it is 800 miles just to Cheyenne and 1,100 miles to Kearney.

Overall, I would do the hike again in a heartbeat. A little exploration is good for the soul and I like being far away from the mass tourist traps. I still have some raw spots on my shoulders where the backpack was rubbing but nothing that won't heal. I am looking forward to the next adventure! Until again

-=Nolan=-