The Preparation

It was nowhere near easy. Not only was finding budget friendly gear that was still very suitable for this trip hard, but Recreation.Gov doesn’t make it any easier when trying to book campsites along these trails. The other constraint in the beginning that I faced is that I didn’t want to only witness one part of the park while we were out there. With so much natural beauty to see; Geysers, waterfalls, open wetland fields, vast mountains, and free wildlife (just to name a few). I wanted the opportunity to see it all.

I then began researching if it was even possible to backpack through multiple spots on one trip. But what I realized is that this is something that has never really happened. But no one else would know how to make this idea feasible other than ChatGPT! I proceeded to ask it, “Create me a 7 day itinerary driving from Beaverton, Ore. to Yellowstone, with 2 days being travel days and the rest be days backpacking through Yellowstone. But instead of doing one long trail, I want to backpack from spot-to-spot and see all of the best spots possible.” The software then wrote an entire book including itinerary, how many miles each route would be to get from TH to campsite, how far each spot is from each other, and told me, what it thought, were the best places to backpack throughout Yellowstone.

Instead of just copying down the plan it built for me, I used it’s work to help design my own plan and itinerary. After that, I scavenged through YouTube damn near watching every trail, in every area of the park, to find out all the trails that I thought would allow us to not only have not to heavy of a day-to-day load, but also see the most exciting and jaw-dropping parts of the park.

Booked the first campsite on July 31st.