Yellowstone Natioanl Park

08/02/08
Nothing like a week in Yellowstone to clear your head!!!! How can you possibly write about a backpacking trip to Yellowstone…for a week….alone??? There’s no real story or entertaining mishaps, just a solid week of 10-14 mile days of hiking. I’d wake up, hike and then repeat each day. I guess I could bore you with my attempts at homemade dehydrated meals ( a HUGE success mind you….) or tell you how I had to hold both pairs of my socks together with Duct Tape because both pairs wore holes on the first 6 mile hike in…thank god for tevas. I could even tell you how refreshing it truly is to take a “bath” in the middle of a huge meadow and not a human sole around for miles, or maybe even tell you what its like to simply sit in a hot spring in the middle of the backcountry for an hour before finally having to hike on. I could even try to relate what its like to watch the sunset on the Grand Tetons from almost 75 miles north, in a meadow…silent, or watch an entire heard of Bison cross through Hayden Valley, or see 5 black bear in a matter of 20 minutes. I could even tell a few of you the thoughts that went through my head as I hiked; thoughts about who I am, my current place in life, what natures all about and how it all truly works, taoism, etc. All these little aspects of the trip could really make a pretty interesting story…but I think I’m going to keep some of them just for me. This was a trip for me…..

The pictures are for all of you!!

Day 1

the view from camp night 1

Day 2

an early start

1st of about 10 stream crossings for the trip

camp night 2 & 3

Day 3

Day 4

stream crossing early am..who needs coffee? Just make a 75yrd stream crossing, up to your “temperature sensitive” area and you are certainly wide AWAKE!!!

all mine…all day!!!

Day 5

time for little soak!!!!

actual sitting pool

Its amazing how much the temperature fluctuated! It would be super cold one second and then another too hot, it only took a few inches of distance to really change the situation from comfy to painful. Still, nothing like getting the shoulders way in there and just looking back into the skies!!!!

That nights camping meadow. I got to watch the sun set and rise by simply rolling over in my sleeping bag. It can’t get much better than that.

Day 6

By about this time I realized that the storage on the camera was running low so I had to take fewer and fewer pictures. The last day is not photographed (a pretty dull day of tree hiking) besides this last one along Lake Lewis.

I felt pretty like I had some pretty positive energy flowing when a 7 mile road hike turned into a 1/4 mile stroll before being picked up by a local and being driven back to the trailhead. Took the drive down to Jackson and it still makes me think about moving. Finally took a real shower and headed off the the Snake River Brew Pub for beer and greasy beef. The next day I took the chance to ride through the park’s east side, which I hadn’t seen before. This is only a small glimpse of what I did see. I wish I had a telephoto lens that matched some of the people I met….WOW you can see so much more! I spent an hour waiting for a pack of wolves to come back and take out an injured elk that I had missed them take from the herd only 45 minuted before and injure….SO CLOSE!! No wolves this time and no grizzly..owe well. There was still a ton of bison, elk, some moose, 5 black bear, deer and one little gray fox as I was crossing the park boundary.