After watching the moose for several hours, I returned to the house and Dad went fishing. Steve thought maybe Saturday would be a "rest day" for us. But I knew better. I don't think Steve can physically do rest days.

When we had stopped at the Clay Butte lookout we helped out a family that couldn't find their car keys. While Steve was helping the dad look for their keys on the trail, he told Steve that Republic Pass was a nice hike. While the trail was on our map, we had read or heard nothing about this hike previously (not in our hiking book, no trip reports online, etc). The trailhead was close by (take a dirt road up the mountainside right from Cooke City), so we thought we'd give it a shot.

The hike was eight miles round trip (an out and back) with reasonable elevation gain - Steve's idea of a "rest day". ;-) The trail parallels Republic Creek and the first few miles took us through forests and scenic open meadows. Steve even commented that if he were an animal, this is where he'd hang out (note: foreshadowing for our hike down).