Yellowstone Bechler Area Sept 2010

[CactusFlower]

We first dropped off a car at the Bechler Ranger Station and stayed at the Old Faithful Inn, about a 3 hours drive from point to point. The woodwork at the Inn was amazing, the stairs were all crooked, this place was built 100 years ago.  We were grateful for one last night in a bed and someone else cooking our dinner!  We were dropped off at the Lone Star trailhead, which is about 2 miles from the Old Faithful area.  The original plan was to take 5 days to do 35 miles to leave time for side trips.  However, due to the snow (see Day 3), we hiked out a day early.

Our first geyser was Lone Star Geyser, about 4 miles into the trip, but we had to wait nearly 2 hours to for it to go off.  There is a notebook at the site where people note when it goes off so you know about when it might set off again. 

From there, we continued on, climbing a little in elevation.  The weather was beautiful, and we encounter a few buffalo along the way.  This one seemed content to lie very near the trail and let us walk around him.  We made sure to give him a wide berth!

That night, my sister cooked tortellini and sauce, followed by a MRE of chocolate cheesecake.  Yum!  We then learned the art of hanging the food, which took multiple tries, although the bear pole itself is provided.  With 3 different people, there were 3 different ideas on how best to do it but somehow everything was hung.  The second day, we again hung the backpacks and took a 4 mile day trip to Shoshone Geyser Basin, which was full of thermal areas and a geyser that went off about every 3 minutes.  We also watched a bald eagle for a while, he sat very majestically on the top of a dead tree.  The clouds were rolling in but we didn't give it much thought.  We also heard a wolf howl, which was a little eerie!  Anyway, we retrieved packs and moved on to the next campsite for the second night.  On the way, the weather took a turn for the worst and started to hail.  I stood underneath a tree for a while because to me, hiking in hail does not make sense.  But it stayed tiny in size (pea-size), so on we went, after pulling on rain gear.  It was still pretty warm so we sweated quite a bit as we gained more elevation.  I made Cashew Curry Rice for dinner, followed by MRE Chocolate Mocha mousse.  We awoke on the third day to more clouds and WIND.  We passed through some beautiful forest.

We a little rain and discovered our campsite for the third night was across the river.  It was only knee dip but very cold!  The toes go numb very quickly.  However, perhaps to make up for that, there was a little hot spring right next to the site.

In the late afternoon, on our way to check out the infamous Mr. Bubbles (large hot spring), it started to rain.  And it didn't stop.  Dinner was a quick MRE, energy bars, and peanuts because it wasn't fun to sit with a stove in the cold and rain no matter how good your rain coat.  We went to bed early and listened to the rain for hours.  Then, the sound on the tent began to change and, upon looking out, discovered it was sleeting and, then, snowing.  Now, we had planned for some wet but not for snow and this was a heavy wet snow.  Whiskey helped to make it all a little more bearable.  Our 3-season Half Dome Plus did pretty well considering it wasn't built for that type of weather but occasionally during the night we had to hit the tent roof and sides so the snow would slide off because one corner kept collapsing.  When we woke in the morning, this is what I saw out the tent door:

And we kind of had to dig out the tents!

It must have been around freezing because the snow was wet but at least it had stopped.  Breakfast was whatever hot liquid you wanted, then we broke camp.  My fleece gloves got soaked of course so I used my last pair of dry socks as mittens while hiking.  Except for sleeping clothes, everything was wet.  We had hung the packs covered in trashbags but that wasn't enough to keep them dry.  The river crossing back to the trail first thing in the morning felt extra cold, causing a little bit of grumpiness for a short time.  We decided to try and just hike all the way out and skip the last campsite, since gear/clothes were wet.  It didn't rain on us on the way out but we hiked quite a ways before getting below the snowline.

Mood improved as we hiked because it was warmer hiking than standing still.  But the trail was muddy and parts of it had turned into a little river as the snow melted.  The Bechler area is known for it's abundance of waterfalls and we did take time to see the ones close to the trail.  This one is Colonade Falls.

As we descended, it became just wet but there were berries everywhere!  My sister was lucky enough to see a good size black bear loping away - he had clearly been enjoying a lunch in the berry patch!  Despite being wet, at least we weren't cold and enjoyed the heavy fog and how it turned everything into looking surreal.  Plus, the wildflowers were still blooming:

We had a few river crossing on the last 2 days of the trip, but of course the last one was also the deepest:

We did switch to sandals for the river crossing but boots stayed wet.  Next time, I might strip down to less clothing because nothing keeps the water out of your pants when it reaches your belly button.  But once we were across, we started hiking in a beautiful meadow.

We saw some cranes but it is too bad the sun wasn't out because I think the color of the meadow would have been amazing.  Anyway, we were very happy to arrive at the Bechler Ranger Station:

The trip was wonderful, despite the snow and rain, and I would highly recommend the area.  We saw very few people, probably less than six a day , you have the campsite to yourself, and the campsites are usually at least 1 mile apart.  Water was (obviously) abundant so you just had to carry enough for the day.  We started at about 7500 feet, gained about 1000 the first 2 days, then the rest was downhill to the meadow, then flat to end at about 6500.  I hope to get back some day to see it in the sun!  We didn't see much in the way of large wildlife (e.g., moose, elk), but perhaps they had the sense to hole up in a warm cave.  Snow camping was actually on my list of 'things to do' and I can now happily cross it off!

[RichardM]

Cool report. Any chance you could put in some larger versions of the pictures? Perhaps put in a link to your Picasa album?

[CactusFlower]

Tech savvy girl I am not.  I must had inadvertently made them too small.  Here is the link to picasa album, with a few more pics.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dillinger.family/Bechler2010#

 

[SA Bill]

Nice report and pics!
  Thanks for posting!
    Bill

[fc7cuda]

Ronna,

Nice report and good pics, bummer Cheryl lost her camera in the river. 

See ya next month..

Tom

[TexasAggieHiker]

Excellent!  When were you there?

[CactusFlower]

Tom, yes, her camera didn't dry out until we got home but luckily it then started working again!

TexasAggiehiker, we started the hike on Sept 7.  I picked the date to miss the mosquitoes, which I hear can be voracious but before the snow.  Ah well, we all know the weather will do whatever it wants, no matter which national park you are in!

[RichardM]

Tech savvy girl I am not.  I must had inadvertently made them too small.  Here is the link to picasa album, with a few more pics.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dillinger.family/Bechler2010#

 

I took out the "/s144" from each picture URL.

[Al]

CF, sounds like a wonderful trip that you will cherish forever!  Thanks for the report.

Al

[homerboy2u]

That waterfall picture is a killer..great pics BTW. Thank you very much for that trip report, C.F.

[dkerr24]

I've only been to Yellowstone once, and the crowds usually scared me away from going back.  I'd heard that once you got 1/4 mile off any road in Yellowstone you have the place to yourself.  I'm starting to believe that now.

Some snow sure sounds nice right now!  Thanks for sharing the pics with the forum!

[Robert]

I've been to Yellowstone many time but never had the chance to backpack. Thanks for sharing your trip.

BTW, the crowds usally pick up around 4th of July. If you go in June it isn't quite so bad, however, the mosquitos may be bad. My buddy and I went in October many years ago and it was very cold at night and the days were short. But we had the park to ourselves.

[CactusFlower]

It is a very busy park and I found myself getting a little tense at the Inn because there were people everywhere.  It is hard to enjoy Old Faithful geyser in a crowd of 75, with tour buses pulling up every 30 minutes.  Somehow it takes away from the magic of such a place.  But if you can push through that, there are a lot of great places to go see and I think that it is true, once you actually start to hike, the crowds fade away.  The geysers and thermal areas in the backcountry don't have the boardwalks to stay on, which I found wonderful.  It is up to me to just figure out where to walk and still stay safe.  Trails were well marked, campsites well maintained, and I found a lot of info on the web regarding everything about the sites from if water was available to if it was a stock site -- good to know, those can be a little smelly! 

[CactusFlower]

YS, I chose the route based on the small changes in elevation!  I was looking for a hike that wasn't going to be a killer in elevation change.  I got a hold of a few good books, plus YS has a chat board similar to this one that I lurked on for a while and did some research.  I wanted a route that had water every night, was multiday in nature, and was either a loop or thru-hike.  If you want to check out one of the books I read, this has a good writeup of the route we did starting on p. 93.  It really helped me plan the trip, with the mileage breakdown. 

http://tiny.cc/rxxcv