Off for a hike today! Drove north from Madison Campground to take off into the wilderness for a few hours, figuring out a route on our way toward Mammoth Hot Springs area. All great, but a nagging feeling that something wasn't quite right . . . Figured it out before too long -- we'd left our camera by the Madison River the evening before while fishing. A camera would be enough to lose, but this had two or three hundred great photos on it too, so very concerning. New plan: Clare and kids set off on to hike from the Ice Lake trailhead and take the Howard Easton trail into Norris Campground (4.6 mi!) while Dan drives back to go camera hunting. An hour to travel the 15 miles back (construction -- all your stimulus dollars hard at work!) to strike out, as expected. No camera turned in, no trace of it by the river. Oh well. Did what we could. Back up another hour to rendezvous with family, whose excitement at successfully navigating through empty territory made up for a lot of the disappointment.
Still enough afternoon left to get up to Mammoth Terraces and have a touristy dinner in the town and to make it even better we saw
our first bear on the drive, and our second bear on the way home. Oh yeah, and there were a couple of bison in there too -- imagine!
Post-script: Next day camera shows up -- turned in by one of those good people we all ought to know are out there. Giant PHEW and a thanks to that anonymous Samaritan.
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