Bad_Luck_Brigade
Member
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2024
- Messages
- 11
Howdy folks.
An abysmal water year led me to cancel the spring trip I had planned for Canyonlands, which is a shame, because my heart yearns for the red and white rock. However, this kiabab deficiency in my life has left me with the opportunity to spend two full weeks in the Yellowstone ecosystem getting eaten by mosquitoes and shivering in fear as I wonder if that sound outside my tent is a bear that wants to eat me.
It seems a good time for it.
Yellowstone has been an object of fascinating for me I think from the day I visited it and saw roaring mountain as I was traveling through the Norris Basin. What I remember most about that trip was the sense of surreality that gripped me, and the thought that it was as if I had traveled to an alien planet where streams steamed, water shot from holes in the ground, and mountains smoked without fire. A few years after that visit, I had the chance to do some stuff in the Yellowstone back country.
It was an experience.
Acting on whim, I decided I wanted to do an overnight trip to compliment all the day trips I'd been taking. It was about getting my feet wet, and dipping my toes into the deeper parts of the ecosystem that most people never get to see. As the trip was done on the fly, I decided to speak to a ranger and seek some permits. At the time, I felt I conveyed my mindset for this trip rather well to the ranger, doing my best to explain that "I accept that there will be a risk of bears, because this is Yellowstone, and this is where bears live."
Later, I began to wonder if perhaps the ranger had heard something very different.
Something like... "Wow, he really wants to see bears. Let's arrange that."
.
This feller right here has the distinctions of being first.
He was the first bear I encountered out of my vehicle. The first bear I encountered alone. The first bear I encountered when I was deep in the backcountry and far from help. Any one of those factors would have been hair raising by itself. But this bear wanted more. He wanted... to be first bear to try and bully me off the path we both shared.
We were near a stream, and at first, I thought he hadn't seen me, so I made some noise. Then I noticed his ears flicked. Yuup. He knew I was there. And he just didn't care. So while I readied my bear spray, he kept trundling forward. There was a fallen to tree to my right that prevented me from sidestepping out of the way, and I wasn't keen on backing up and putting myself right in the bridge he wanted to access. So I sorta... held my ground. There was a moment where I gave a mental shrug. This is it, Bad Luck. You're gonna have a tussle with a bear, and I guess this is happening, so lets. Go. By the some quirk of cosmic coincidence, that seemed to be the moment that bear decided he didn't want my part of the path that bad. About 23 feet from me (20 was the place I planned on spraying him) he stopped, turned around, and went the other way. The second he got past the fallen tree, he circled around it. I took the moment to back up and put some distance between the two of us, and watched as he went right over the bridge.
After he was gone, I turned back around and swept my surroundings with a keen gaze, a single thought ringing in the dull haze I call my mind; Yuuup. I am not camping here tonight.
The hour was getting late, but I put another four miles between me and that bridge. Most of that time was spent looking for a suitable pine to hang my stuff.
You see, I was in Gallatin at the time because the campsite me and the ranger had come up with had been wildly conservative on my part. I reached my permitted campsite at about nine in the morning. As I had seen considerable amounts of grizzly tracks in that canyon, and feeling the need to eat some miles, I decided to scrap my original trip rather than move at a snail's pace for the next three days.
The next morning? The Hellroaring bridge.
Many tourists use the Hellroaring suspension bridge as they head for where the Hellroaring-Yellowstone river confluence intending on a nice picnic. Being the sensible soul I was, I politely let those who crossed my path know that a bear was in the area. The blithe lack of concern shown by those daring individuals who admitted to leaving their bear spray in the car was charming in a quaint way. Within the glass house of my private thoughts, many a stone was thrown.
Perhaps it was not fair to those I met.
After all, they had not learned the lesson I had the day before. I had not wanted any fight with that bear, but as it had approached me, I had been forced to accept that the choice of whether I would live or die was not entirely in my own hands. My perceived adversary had not only appeared heavier than I was, but nature had seen fit to grant him better weapons and armor than it had me. His hide was thick, his claws wicked, his teeth sharp. And that was only the beginning. The looming night was his ally, and it was my enemy. His sense of smell? A thousand times greater than my own. And he knew the lay of the land in ways I did not, for it was his home. Had he wanted to, he could have attacked me, and there would have been little I could do. Worse, he could have waited and instead pursued me, attacking at night when he had all the advantage, and I had none.
There is something deeply humbling about facing an apex predator in it's home environment and realizing that you are no longer in charge.
In the end, that bear had wanted about as little to do with me as I had him, which suited us both find. But as I watched people descend into a place where I knew black bears and grizzlies lurked, having encountered one in the flesh and finding ample sign of the other everywhere a single canyon over, I wryly observed a single fact to myself as I hiked back up to my car.
It really only takes one mauling to ruin your whole trip.
Ladies and gentlemen, my first time ever doing an overnight trip in the Yellowstone ecosystem.
This is a long, rambly way to explain that I like to think of myself as a very, very stupid individual. As is my habit, when faced with death and danger, I learn nothing, regret even less, and come back for more, cooing at nature the way a smoker coos at death while covered in the benjamins it takes to fund a smoking habit. Yesterday, flash floods. Still yesterday, but closer to the present time, bears. Today, pine-covered cliffs, long drops, and short stops.
The future is limitless and defined only by my imagination. And I imagine myself as a button. This button in particular.
The first week, I plan on doing a 60 mile loop in the southwest corner of the park, cutting across Madison Plateau twice to reach campsites. I am looking forward to the off trail portions of my trip there. I feel I have a low chance of being eaten, and this suits me and the bears just fine.
It's the second week that I am here to beg some help for.
I have reserved Joseph's coat for two days, with a third reservation for a different campground. I intend to use Joseph's coat as a base camp while I expedition to Fairyland.
As a solitary hiker who finds it difficult to find people to hike with, my margin for error is smaller than those whom have a group to rely upon. A mistake on my part will put me into a difficult situation, and while I carry methods by which aid can be summoned out of good sense while in the back country, I have only ever used those methods to summon rescue for people other than me, and would like to keep it that way. The rangers have enough on their plate already. Best to avoid needing a rescue if I can.
I've read the existing trip reports, and taken a look at the pictures shown, but there is one thing that bothers me.
Part of me suspects it's the desert rat in me that's making me hesitate here. In the places I wander, there is only one or two good routes, and sometimes those routes look more like a creative method of suicide than a sane path of travel. It isn't just the descent, or the sheer cliff walls I see in the photos, or the talk of the Golden Fleece Falls which I am having trouble finding images of. It's all three of them combined. A narrow canyon plus a waterfall sounds like a sheer drop that can't be navigated, so I can't follow Broad Creek down to Fairyland. There is little talk of Shallow Creek, so that might be a dead end as well. The other canyon exit ends in the Yellowstone river. Excursions to Seven Mile Hole have shown me how unforgiving that Canyon is.
Does anyone have a picture of the route up and down?
I'd like to understand where I need to start my descent, and I'd like to get a good look at what's going on with the slope. Unfortunately, the satellite imagery of this area isn't up to the task.
Please help. I need to ask the fairies if they have seen my lawn gnomes.
An abysmal water year led me to cancel the spring trip I had planned for Canyonlands, which is a shame, because my heart yearns for the red and white rock. However, this kiabab deficiency in my life has left me with the opportunity to spend two full weeks in the Yellowstone ecosystem getting eaten by mosquitoes and shivering in fear as I wonder if that sound outside my tent is a bear that wants to eat me.
It seems a good time for it.
Yellowstone has been an object of fascinating for me I think from the day I visited it and saw roaring mountain as I was traveling through the Norris Basin. What I remember most about that trip was the sense of surreality that gripped me, and the thought that it was as if I had traveled to an alien planet where streams steamed, water shot from holes in the ground, and mountains smoked without fire. A few years after that visit, I had the chance to do some stuff in the Yellowstone back country.
It was an experience.
Acting on whim, I decided I wanted to do an overnight trip to compliment all the day trips I'd been taking. It was about getting my feet wet, and dipping my toes into the deeper parts of the ecosystem that most people never get to see. As the trip was done on the fly, I decided to speak to a ranger and seek some permits. At the time, I felt I conveyed my mindset for this trip rather well to the ranger, doing my best to explain that "I accept that there will be a risk of bears, because this is Yellowstone, and this is where bears live."
Later, I began to wonder if perhaps the ranger had heard something very different.
Something like... "Wow, he really wants to see bears. Let's arrange that."
.
This feller right here has the distinctions of being first.
He was the first bear I encountered out of my vehicle. The first bear I encountered alone. The first bear I encountered when I was deep in the backcountry and far from help. Any one of those factors would have been hair raising by itself. But this bear wanted more. He wanted... to be first bear to try and bully me off the path we both shared.
We were near a stream, and at first, I thought he hadn't seen me, so I made some noise. Then I noticed his ears flicked. Yuup. He knew I was there. And he just didn't care. So while I readied my bear spray, he kept trundling forward. There was a fallen to tree to my right that prevented me from sidestepping out of the way, and I wasn't keen on backing up and putting myself right in the bridge he wanted to access. So I sorta... held my ground. There was a moment where I gave a mental shrug. This is it, Bad Luck. You're gonna have a tussle with a bear, and I guess this is happening, so lets. Go. By the some quirk of cosmic coincidence, that seemed to be the moment that bear decided he didn't want my part of the path that bad. About 23 feet from me (20 was the place I planned on spraying him) he stopped, turned around, and went the other way. The second he got past the fallen tree, he circled around it. I took the moment to back up and put some distance between the two of us, and watched as he went right over the bridge.
After he was gone, I turned back around and swept my surroundings with a keen gaze, a single thought ringing in the dull haze I call my mind; Yuuup. I am not camping here tonight.
The hour was getting late, but I put another four miles between me and that bridge. Most of that time was spent looking for a suitable pine to hang my stuff.
You see, I was in Gallatin at the time because the campsite me and the ranger had come up with had been wildly conservative on my part. I reached my permitted campsite at about nine in the morning. As I had seen considerable amounts of grizzly tracks in that canyon, and feeling the need to eat some miles, I decided to scrap my original trip rather than move at a snail's pace for the next three days.
The next morning? The Hellroaring bridge.
Many tourists use the Hellroaring suspension bridge as they head for where the Hellroaring-Yellowstone river confluence intending on a nice picnic. Being the sensible soul I was, I politely let those who crossed my path know that a bear was in the area. The blithe lack of concern shown by those daring individuals who admitted to leaving their bear spray in the car was charming in a quaint way. Within the glass house of my private thoughts, many a stone was thrown.
Perhaps it was not fair to those I met.
After all, they had not learned the lesson I had the day before. I had not wanted any fight with that bear, but as it had approached me, I had been forced to accept that the choice of whether I would live or die was not entirely in my own hands. My perceived adversary had not only appeared heavier than I was, but nature had seen fit to grant him better weapons and armor than it had me. His hide was thick, his claws wicked, his teeth sharp. And that was only the beginning. The looming night was his ally, and it was my enemy. His sense of smell? A thousand times greater than my own. And he knew the lay of the land in ways I did not, for it was his home. Had he wanted to, he could have attacked me, and there would have been little I could do. Worse, he could have waited and instead pursued me, attacking at night when he had all the advantage, and I had none.
There is something deeply humbling about facing an apex predator in it's home environment and realizing that you are no longer in charge.
In the end, that bear had wanted about as little to do with me as I had him, which suited us both find. But as I watched people descend into a place where I knew black bears and grizzlies lurked, having encountered one in the flesh and finding ample sign of the other everywhere a single canyon over, I wryly observed a single fact to myself as I hiked back up to my car.
It really only takes one mauling to ruin your whole trip.
Ladies and gentlemen, my first time ever doing an overnight trip in the Yellowstone ecosystem.
This is a long, rambly way to explain that I like to think of myself as a very, very stupid individual. As is my habit, when faced with death and danger, I learn nothing, regret even less, and come back for more, cooing at nature the way a smoker coos at death while covered in the benjamins it takes to fund a smoking habit. Yesterday, flash floods. Still yesterday, but closer to the present time, bears. Today, pine-covered cliffs, long drops, and short stops.
The future is limitless and defined only by my imagination. And I imagine myself as a button. This button in particular.
The first week, I plan on doing a 60 mile loop in the southwest corner of the park, cutting across Madison Plateau twice to reach campsites. I am looking forward to the off trail portions of my trip there. I feel I have a low chance of being eaten, and this suits me and the bears just fine.
It's the second week that I am here to beg some help for.
I have reserved Joseph's coat for two days, with a third reservation for a different campground. I intend to use Joseph's coat as a base camp while I expedition to Fairyland.
As a solitary hiker who finds it difficult to find people to hike with, my margin for error is smaller than those whom have a group to rely upon. A mistake on my part will put me into a difficult situation, and while I carry methods by which aid can be summoned out of good sense while in the back country, I have only ever used those methods to summon rescue for people other than me, and would like to keep it that way. The rangers have enough on their plate already. Best to avoid needing a rescue if I can.
I've read the existing trip reports, and taken a look at the pictures shown, but there is one thing that bothers me.
Part of me suspects it's the desert rat in me that's making me hesitate here. In the places I wander, there is only one or two good routes, and sometimes those routes look more like a creative method of suicide than a sane path of travel. It isn't just the descent, or the sheer cliff walls I see in the photos, or the talk of the Golden Fleece Falls which I am having trouble finding images of. It's all three of them combined. A narrow canyon plus a waterfall sounds like a sheer drop that can't be navigated, so I can't follow Broad Creek down to Fairyland. There is little talk of Shallow Creek, so that might be a dead end as well. The other canyon exit ends in the Yellowstone river. Excursions to Seven Mile Hole have shown me how unforgiving that Canyon is.
Does anyone have a picture of the route up and down?
I'd like to understand where I need to start my descent, and I'd like to get a good look at what's going on with the slope. Unfortunately, the satellite imagery of this area isn't up to the task.
Please help. I need to ask the fairies if they have seen my lawn gnomes.
