Day 3. Monday. After departing Idaho, we drove 2 hours north to West Yellowstone, Montana. Not only the closest town to the west entrance of Yellowstone National Park, West Yellowstone is also the town where Forrest spent much of his childhood and later owned the Dude Motel (still standing, ironically right next door to the pizza place where we ate dinner tonight.
We checked into our motel, where Michael warmly greeted us with a smile, a book about grizzly bear attacks, and a crash course on how to use bear spray. He even let us borrow a second can of his bear spray (a commodity worth more than Forrest's gold in these parts).
Zach and I were the designated bear spray team today, while Brian kept us on our toes with ample practice. He would randomly shout "bear!" throughout the day -- whether in town or in the woods -- to which Zach and I would draw our bear spray, pretend to pull the safety, and aim it at our invisible attacker. Zach got it down to 3.5 seconds flat (it takes about 6 for the bear to recognize you and charge apparently). We tried to limit shouting "bear" around other hikers, but eh, they could probably use the practice too (just kidding).
We made it to Yellowstone by lunch where we were immediately greeted by a female elk (no other wildlife spottings today). We made a quick stop by the Midway Geyser Basin and Old Faithful before consulting our new trail map and beginning the hunt!
(Elk in the water)
(Photo with the elk)
We drove and hiked back and forth across the area that matched our theory and what we knew about Forrest Fenn. We scouted for tributaries, checked both of our maps continually, and even dipped our toes in the cold, clear water of a designated swimming hole, but eventually we had exhausted our primary theory to no avail. When morale started to wane, we took a detour to the artist's paint pots (which were incredible) and then headed back to town for pizza.
After dinner, we found Wifi, opened our maps, and went back to the drawing board. Two new theories and more pictures of this beautiful landscape coming tomorrow!
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