SEPTEMBER 4, 2002

SUMMIT LAKE TO MADISON CAMPGROUND, YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK

7:30 a.m.: I’m the first person up, my tent is packed up and I’m sitting again on the edge of the lake to finish last nights journal entry. The lake is smooth and reflecting the treeline and first morning clouds. Bull elks are still bugling in the forests around us, eery but beautiful warbling calls. Birds are every where, little grebe-like birds on the lake, and feeding on some little creatures along the lake are robins, beautiful soft gray birds with white head markings and almost crests, and another handsome gray bird with distinctive black and white wing feathers. If I sit really still they come down to feed at the waterline just feet from me. The sun is just lighting up the tops of the grasses and it’s absolutely quiet except for the cries and flapping wings of the birds. Camp is now awake so I’d better get over for my hot Granola with Blueberry breakfast.

11:30 a.m.: We left Summit Lake at 9:30 and have just stopped for a quick lunch. We’ve already covered 5.82 miles (good old GPS technology) and are looking down on Biscuit Basin in the Upper Geyser Basin. We can see the cars on the Grand Loop Road and the Firehole River looping through the basin. Much of the trail has continued to be through the burn area along a dry waterway. As it was yesterday the trail is flat and has allowed us a quick trip out. The trail is now heading down and we should be in the basin within an hour. We have just reached the Support Team and alerted them of our ETA.

12:45 p.m.: We arrive in the basin and come out at a boardwalk through steaming geysers and bubbling pools. What a landscape after the past month in forests and grass-covered ridgelines. The most incredible sight is Saphire Pool, a great deep pool rimmed in stone with no observable bottom. According to the area sign the pool erupted violently during a 1959 earthquake. Along the boardwalk are lots of people coolly dressed in casual vacation clothes - what a strange sight for us who have seen so few people throughout the Journey. But what a sight we must be to them, five pretty dusty hikers burdened with sizable backpacks strolling along the boardwalk toward the parking lot.

The Madison group camp is great with fantastic restrooms. We have almost the entire afternoon to relax. And, soooo, Journal entries are starting to appear after five days of quiet. From the Journey, dana