Occasional rain overnight was followed this morning by occasional clouds. The trail stayed on the relatively level plateau for several miles before it started to drop to the Firehole River Valley. We passed through some unburned older forest, but mostly walked through various stages of regeneration from the ’88 fires.
I remember visiting Yellowstone in 1989 and taking a day hike through areas that had burned a year earlier. The charred black trees and desolate gray soil left a lifeless landscape. Not only were the burned areas devoid of any green plants or large animals, even insects and birds were absent. The silence was deafening. It looked then like it might …
After a breakfast of Onion Bagels, Cream Cheese and coffee (another luxury that we allowed ourselves because of the short stretch to Old Faithful), we continued on old Forest Service roads. Many of these roads had tank trap style berms put in place to try and keep out illegal OHV use. New growth abounds everywhere. The ’88 fire, like most wildfires, burned with varying intensity creating a mosaic pattern. Likewise, the regrowth has returned with variated vigor. Some places look like they are only now starting to recover, while other places have grown back so strong and complete it’s hard to see the original disturbance.
We entered Yellowstone park and had …
On our second ride, heading out of town we got picked up by a rancher from Billings. He was driving a Peterbuilt Cab, the kind used to haul 18 wheel semi-trailer trucks. Only he was pulling a combo RV / Horsetrailer. A large RV compartment took up the front half of the rig and a climate contolled compartment for horses was the back half. He was headed for Jackson Hole for an equestrian competition of some kind.
We walked along highway 20 from Sawtelle to Mack’s Inn, which are both part of the City of Island Park, an unusual place. Island Park is 36 miles long and very narrow. …
We’re in West Yellowstone, doing errands and listening to the multitude of languages spoken by tourists as well as tourist trap operators. The details of our errands are probably boring, beyond a couple of battles with bureaucracy. We won one and lost the other.
WON: The Park Service didn’t want to issue us ONE permit for our whole itinerary through Yellowstone’s backcountry. They figured that since we are planning on staying at Old Faithful Lodge, breaking the backcountry into two parts, our hike is actually two trips and they can’t usually issue the second part until the first is complete. But, after a little kindly cajoling, they relented and …
As we started to break camp, the snow started to fall; small, furious flakes, the kind that can add up fast. Fortunately they didn’t amount to much, despite falling for the first couple hours of our walk.
We passed Sawtelle Mountain, site of a major FAA radar installation. From way down below, after we had arrived at the north end of Island Park, we looked back up and Sawtelle peak loomed larger than life – tall, fortress like, commanding a presence above the general mountain plain, as if it were out of some Hollywood world, James Bond movie.
Our walk out was fast, along the service road for the mountain and we …
