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Daily Didactic
The day began with the splashing sounds of creek on rock outside our tent. As Cache Creek gurgled, we decided we should probably get packed and on the trail before it started raining again. We "rain geared" up and broke down camp under a sky of dark clouds. Just about the time we got the last of our gear in our packs and readied for the hike out, the clouds disappeared and the sun suddenly made it a pleasant morning for a hike. We headed down the trail from "3L1" and had to pause before rejoining the main trail to let a buffalo go ahead. We aren't sure what trail etiquette is here, but we are sure that buffalo have the right of way. It turns out the buffalo was joining a buddy just over the rise and about a half mile into our hike we came upon them grazing in the middle of the trail.
Buffalo we've decided are like a cross between a cow and a moose, not too aware and potentially harmful. We started bushwhacking around our trail companions and headed cross country. This was a little more slow going and our friends ambled along parallel to us on the actual trail, but we eventually got around them and back on the path. By the time we did this, we had one last rise to go over before crossing a large meadow to the bus. As we hit to top of the rise we both laughed out loud. If two buffalo had been an issue, we now had a herd of about fifty between us and the bus, with our path dissecting the herd on the right edge. Ultimately they didn't seem to care a lot about us and we made it the bus without being gored.
We headed out the north entrance, past Mammoth Hot Springs, and stopped in Gardner long enough to have a pizza at the K-Bar. From Gardner we headed an hour north to Livingston, and three hours or so northwest to Missoula. We finally stopped for the night around 8:00 at the increasingly familiar Missoula KOA.
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