Hellroaring Creek

We left off when we finally reached an area flat enough to camp on. Luckily, it was an unofficial backcountry site with a bear pole and everything.

It was a beautiful morning:



We had come down this slope the night before:



And the Hellroaring Creek was just as impressive the next morning:



Nick checked out the water situation:



Him looking up at me:



Despite the steep, rocky slope it was our best spot for water, so we filtered a bunch.



And washed a few things, including ourselves:





Then we got back to the camp to find a visitor!



He was panting, the poor thing...



We spent the day hiking parallel to the Hellroaring creek, going through wildflower filled meadows and shady wooded spots:



And a mudslide:



For lunch we stopped at an illegal backcountry site overlooking the creek:



Where Will and Jason flipped a coin for he last chicken, salsa, and cheese wrap from the day before. You find ways to entertain yourself...



I found a nice little perch to watch them skip stones:





And have our second animal spotting of the day - a Marmot! He was rather fascinated by our stone skipping:



So I decided to try it too:



After that we left the Beartooth Wilderness:



And entered back into the Park (a note, never, ever did we see signs when we entered Montana or returned to Wyoming - apparently park boundaries are more important than state ones!). The sign had seen better days...



We continued along the creek for the rest of the afternoon:



In the distance you can see the Buffalo Plateau that we hiked two days earlier:



We crossed over Hellroaring to get to our campsite for the evening, which was off of a little spur and right on Coyote Creek:



The site was beautiful - in a meadow with a shaded brook on one side and a hillside on the other, with lots of ground squirrels in between.



In fact, I'm pretty sure one of those ground squirrels took my comb!



I had had it out because I did a creekside hair "washing"



I had to change pants because I got waste water from cleaning my food bowl on my hiking pants (which means I could no longer keep them in the tent). Luckily I had brought my running pants as an underlayer - see my gear post about that!)



There were lots of butterflies:



That night we ATE ALL OF THE THINGS, so we didn't have to carry them the next, our final, day.



We were pretty darn hungry. In fact, I can't tell you how long it takes you to recover the calorie loss that happens on these trips. There is just no way you can eat enough calories to recover what you burn. Your body is building so much muscle, it's not just the cardio.

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Next Up: Back to civilization :(

Back to Civilization

We left off our third and final night of the trip. Our last day was the shortest of the days: just about 5 1/2 miles out, with the last part meeting back up with where we left. With one car it's hard to anything but a loop, but Yellowstone doesn't have many loops. This was more of what they call a "lollipop."



We took a break under that tree:



We weren't in a rush, so we enjoyed the scenery and I spotted some Elk with my binoculars:



They were too far away to get a picture, but they were on this slope:



We started to encounter people again at this point. In fact, after we branched off for the Buffalo Plateau we didn't encounter another single hiker until near the end of day 3, when we crossed paths with some Germans. The next day we saw some Australians. That was it until we met back up with the Coyote Creek trail. I wish I could capture the looks on these peoples face though, as they thought the 500 ft. descent/ascent they were doing as a short hike was bad enough and then they see our grizzled faces and packs.





Before we began the ascent to the parking lot we came across some horses and their riders, which also meant we dodged horse droppings the whole way up.



Remember the Buffalo Plateau? I DO.



After!



Being a Saturday, we could only hope for a cancellation at a campground but there weren't any. We booked a backcountry site just .5 miles off a road and drove up to Gardiner, MT, where we got a tip about a new fancy hotel that we bargained a two bedroom suite from 295 down to 175 a night.



We were very happy to take showers:



And eat real food:



Our waiter really liked our music choices in the jukebox (mostly Grateful Dead) and when he brought our fried dough appetizer told us it was "chronic." Yeah, he knew the score!



Will, Steve, and I stayed in to enjoy the hotel room and Nick and Jason went out on the town. Our waiter at dinner had told them about some local jam band. They ended up getting rather drunk!



The next morning we ate a massive breakfast (except for Nick, who due to a really bad hangover stuck to toast and fruit!)



We stopped for an early dinner in Cody, where I found a new friend:



And then drove through the night Rapid City to get Steve to the airport to fly back to Boston. We ate at an all night IHOP and then continued on, nonstop, to Madison (oh, well, we stopped in Rochester, MN for Culvers :)

THE END! Hope you enjoyed it!!