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- Feb 21, 2024
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- 101
The first nights I ever spent under the stars in Yellowstone's backcountry came on a three-day horsepack trip when I was fourteen. My dad and I had been roadtripping across the west the summer after I finished 8th grade - the first full summer after my parents had divorced - and we were set to effectively wrap said trip with this excursion into the park's northwest corner from somewhere just south of Big Sky.
I didn't pay attention to which trailhead at the time. I didn't really pay too much attention to where we were actually going, only focusing on (quite fondly) the horse that carried me (Willis), the ride (I grew up riding in Kentucky), and the incredible fishing at the little lake where we camped for two nights.
I moved back west with my now wife in 2010, and have been in central Colorado since. When I finally got around to backpacking regularly shortly thereafter, map reading obviously came with it, and when I began to look at bigger trips into the best public lands we've got, Yellowstone jumped right back off the page. It was at that point that I realized I'd been somewhere, done something, and probably needed to do a better job figuring out exactly how that had happened, and it didn't take long to realize it was Sportsman Lake that had hosted us all those years before.
I wanted desperately to get back there. Posterity played a part, to be sure, but the honest truth is that I just had visceral memories of how pretty its basin was - and of how damn many fish we pulled out of that lake back then.
I planned a trip to hit it in 2023, only to fail to land a permit. I planned a trip to hit it in 2024 only for smoke to force us to audible to a Wind River trip further south.
In 2025, though, I finally made it back.
I rendezvoused in Jackson with a trio of old friends and good hiking buddies on what I suppose I should call Day Zero, given this header. One came from Charlotte, one from Kauai, and another lives in the Hole, and I drove up to meet them for dinner and a living room floor sleep before we made our way north up 191. We picked up our permit in West Yellowstone and headed north through Idaho, eventually dropping my car at Specimen Creek TH where two of us would recoup it five days later. We then piled in the other truck and retreated south to Fawn Pass TH to head in a straightforward ~3 or so miles to WC2 to set up camp for the night.
Camp at WC2.
Given the 3 hour drive north, the stop at the ranger station for the permit, the pizza lunch, etc., it was a late afternoon start, but we'd planned it as such. Ideally, we'd reach camp around 5:30 or 6, get settled, and have the evening to fish our hearts out on Fan Creek until the sun went down and things cooled off. It was August 19th, it was hot as could be, and since the park had entered into Stage II fire restrictions we knew sitting up around a fire wasn't going to be much of an option, so fishing hard while we could became top priority.
We pulled a few little guys out, but something seemed a little off - something the trail gods would rectify with us the following morning. Still, it was nice to walk the cool water of the creek for a couple of hours, and we fell back to the banks to eat dinner as the sun began to set only for an interesting cloud pattern to begin to emerge from the west.
My buddy Will 1, me definitely still 0 that day.
A squint, a joke, and a sip of whiskey later, it became quite clear that the cloud pattern wasn't weather related. It was a fire that had sparked just over the ridge west of the Gallatin River, and we were watching its smoke plume shoot up.
It was bone dry out there. It was also quite windy, though both where we were (and where the plume was heading skyward) were clearly being hit with southern winds. Everything seemed to be moving north, and since we were looking directly west, we could tell the fire was already just slightly north of us to begin with - and, as we scoured the map and the ridgeline in view, definitely on the other side of the river itself some 3-4 miles away. So, we went to bed ready to have to abort and flee if need be, but without as much concern as we'd initially had, even if the status of our cars at the two respective trailheads much closer weren't exactly in the best of locales.
It turns out that was the start of the West Fork Fire, and we were lucky that this one didn't blow up the way so many others have. We stayed awake a little later than we otherwise would have, but with no growing glow we hit the tents in prep for a meaningful day two.
Trails Illustrated #303 shows the Fan Creek Trail zagging to the north side of the creek as it heads northeast past WC3 en route to the junction with Sportsman Lake Trail.
The map at the ranger station showed the same thing.
Gaia GPS showed trails on both sides, however, and if we opted to try the route on the creek's southern bank, we'd avoid a backtrack of just under a mile seeing as we were camped on that side to begin with. If, of course, there was actually still a trail there.
As it turns out, beavers had constructed a thorough blockade of the creek just above us, something that sogged out the Fan Creek meadows in a big, big way. We were pretty pot committed once we figured out how broad the flood was, however, and we ended up just sending it through the bog to get back to the north bank and on with our day. It was already warm enough on a day that would top 80 degrees and the water was refreshing, albeit a pain in the ass, and it took us nearly an hour to slog out on the other side.
When we climbed up the bank to the trail on the north side, the breadth of the flood/pond became evident. So that's where all the fish we couldn't catch last night must be!
We pushed northeast to WC4, which had been tagged with a 'bear frequenting area' alert, and chose it as our spot to have an early lunch. The access to water, wide meadows in every direction, and abundant trees made one wonder why a bear would ever not frequent such an area, but our half-hour spent there in the growing winds yielded us sadly no ursal views.
Descending into Sportsman Lake Basin flanked by Electric Peak
We met the Sportsman Lake trail and turned east up a steady yet forgiving thousand foot incline before ultimately dropping right back down into the cirque where Sportsman Lake resides, views further east of Electric Peak behind the wide meadows our backdrop. It was only early afternoon yet the wind had whipped up into borderline gales, and we hustled down the trail towards said meadows to get out of the bending pines as quickly as we could.
Passing the patrol cabin revealed the first view that stirred a decades-old memory. The views back north across the waving grass in the meadows at point 9311 had been etched in my brain since that first trip all those years ago, and it turns out this was the first real chance to prove they'd been etched their permanently. It was all just as I'd remembered, the outfitter camp on one shore of the lake, the lake itself tucked in at the base of a craggy wall opposite the big peak to the east. The biggest difference, though, was the water level, as the mid-August heat and summerlong drought had sucked the waters in some 20 feet from where they usually were, leaving the shallows where I'd fished the first trip nothing more than exposed mud. Beyond that, it rendered the water much too far away from the rocks on which we'd previously fished, and trying to cast even the heaviest flies we'd brought that far through that wind proved to be an exercise in futility.
I felt quite guilty at that point. I'd put this trip together with my own nostalgia in mind, but also with the promise of great fishing. With the Fan Creek beaver dam the night before and wind/drought putting Sportsman out of reach, half our party was going to rise on the morning of day three without a single tall tale of fishing that part of the park to tell. And the biggest problem with that was that half the party was rising at 4 AM to hike back to the truck at Fawn Pass TH, life and work and the real world calling them back while my good buddy George and I were to head further north to High Lake and Crescent Lake before hiking out on day five.
Will fighting endlessly against the elements at Sportsman Lake
Fortunately, though, the beauty of the place kept spirits plenty high despite the lack of successful fishing. Tall tales of lives lived before our knees creaked blanketed by a brilliant sunset have a way of doing that, I suppose, and we eventually moseyed back deep into the trees behind WD3 to camp out of the winds, which howled for hours after we first tried to fall asleep.
Defeated so-called fisherman calling it a day. Rumor has it Will uses a 72 ft fly rod, I'm just lucky I could catch a tiny portion of it in frame.
That third day of the trip proved to be somewhat bittersweet, albeit to the advantage of the two of us still out there hiking.
To start, we'd not really seen any wildlife on the first two days, yet on day three came across a massive bull moose in his pond on the opposite of the meadow from our trail along Specimen Creek. He was perfectly positioned far enough away (with our trail at treeline) that we felt comfortable watching him for 10 or so minutes, him going about his day as we tried to come up with which model vehicle was most akin to his size (I settled on a Mazda RX-7).
George pointing to the sixth tree over from a perfectly cool bull moose. Not sure why he liked that tree so much.
Then, as we climbed up to the ridge south of High Lake and the boundary of the park and forest, the wind finally began to give out. In fact, it laid down to such a low wisp that I almost wondered if I'd miss it, with bugs still potentially in the equation. The bugs, thankfully, never came after us, and we then stumbled on a campsite in national forest land so established and maintained we had to prove to ourselves twice it wasn't an actual Yellowstone camp that we'd missed on our maps. Prove we did, though, and that became ours for the night, conveniently outside of park boundaries at one of those odd moments where the park had fire restrictions yet the national forest did not.
We then moved just up the hill to WD4 on the southern shore of High Lake to hang out and fish for the remainder of the afternoon, and there was nobody in that site the entire time. It proved to be the perfect spot for some salami and cheese tortillas, and even provided us with the best spot for fishing we had the entire trip.
The author with a half-decent rainbow out of High Lake
Near dusk we returned to camp, ate heartily, and enjoyed a small fire while watching the stars envelope us above. The wind had sent us in far too early the previous night, and this was finally the chance to sit up a bit late and enjoy being that small in the great universe above us.
We did, though, both wake up in a stir about 2 AM, when two loud sticks snapped and something big was breathing on the trail by our tents. I had my small air-horn in one hand and bear spray in my other, the latter sure to do a great job of just gassing myself inside the tent if my trigger finger got too happy. For probably 30 seconds (that felt like five minutes) we both sat silent before finally hearing movement, and the multiple hoof clacks let us know whatever was out there was more ungulate than bear. Its sound eventually got lighter as it moved further from us, and back to sleep we went, knowing day four would take us to the highest point on the trip, the plateau east of Crescent Lake where we'd have incredible views north into the mighty Gallatin Range.
Morning on the penultimate scheduled day of the trip began as it so often does, with open wonderment at whether this could, or even should end up being the actual final day of the trip. It was about 12-13 miles back to my car, a distance we knew we could cover despite the heat. The heat - god, it had been hot - was one of the things making us wonder if we'd be better off out of there and back to A/C, though we realized we'd been pretty damn satisfied with the trip already.
We'd finally caught fish. Personally, I'd made it back to Sportsman Lake, and cauterized a leaky memory of a place that built my love of Yellowstone to begin with. We'd seen a moose, likely heard a moose (the same one?), and even managed to sit up by a fire for a time and gaze into the cosmos. The two of us have done some pretty big trips together over the years - the Maze, Heart Lake, over 100 miles of the Tonto Trail, etc. - and this trip, while beautiful and engaging, didn't seem like it demanded us to stay out there any longer if we could rationalize getting out that day.
We rationalized it pretty easily. Wings and beer and a cold shower rationalized it, as did knowing a night spent in Jackson would put us 3 hours closer to being home the next day, and seeing as I had to drop him off in Vail before heading back to Denver, that would turn a 13 hour day into a slightly more manageable 10 hour one - one that would even let me tuck my kids in when I got home.
So, we took off from just south of High Lake with intent, watering up on the north shore near the East Fork of Specimen Creek's headwaters and hauling a ton of water northwest across the high plateau. FOMO kicked in immediately, of course, as we came across several places that would've been killer dry camps the night before had we chosen to pursue that end, and we eventually stopped for a snack along the cliffs that define the north boundary of the park to look out at Emigrant Peak, Sheep Mountain, and Ramshorn Peak - each well north of 10,000 feet of rocky mass.
Looking north into the Gallatins
George high above Specimen Creek
An arrowhead we came across on the plateau
When we packed up there, we knew it was mostly downhill sailing back to Specimen Creek, with some 2,000+ feet we'd shed along the way back to the car. Plus we'd return to dependable water, meaning the 4L we'd carried up to the plateau that morning would quickly become shed weight, too. When we reached Crescent Lake it was impossible not to stop and admire it for a bit, especially since WE6 was where we had on our permit to camp that evening. We got there early enough in the morning that the folks who'd camped there the night before were still there breaking camp - a dad and daughter, with her out for her first overnight backpacking trip ever. It was refreshing as hell to see how excited she was, how excited her dad was that she was that excited about doing something he clearly loved, and it just made even more sense for us to head south to our car as they headed out north to Shelf Lake - that campsite clearly deserved the level of enthusiasm of the previous night's guests more than that of two salty guys who'd had enough fun for four days already and were hellbent on amenities unafforded and unneccessary there.
The beautiful Crescent Lake
We made quick time down Specimen Creek. Its valley is incredible, but the trail is somewhat exposed for most of it. In the heat of nearly 85 degrees under the noon sun at its peak, that was more than we wanted to savor, so it was in fifth we hiked our way out. Rest assured, though, I peeled out north for a mile so I could dip my hat in Wickiup Creek before we hit the road for good, as that seemed too obvious to pass up.
Five months later and I can still smell this picture. I need to sandblast the stench out of that Gorilla.
For some final notes, I'll add that we decided to drive back through the park to Jackson in lieu of the slightly faster way down US-20 through Driggs, ID. The heat felt less imposing when you could cruise with the windows down and Willie singing on the speakers, so we peeled east in West Yellowstone and did that. And just minutes into our drive past the Gneiss Creek TH on the bluffs north of the Madison, two grizzlies were berry-sniffing and owning their moment. We stopped - everyone stopped - and after four days in the sticks on foot knowing they were out there, everywhere, we saw a pair from the car right after we got back to it.
We spent the night in Jackson, filled our guts with beer and wings and burgers, and headed back south first thing the next morning. We took the US-189/191 route south towards Pinedale, and by the time we reached Daniel Junction it was as if we were driving through hell. Turns out the Dollar Lake fire started up by Green River Lakes overnight and winds had been enough out of the north to blow its smoke straight back down through Cora and right to us. It looked and felt pretty apocalyptic, especially since I'd spent so much time right up there on a 2024 trip to Summit Lake and over Porcupine Pass. Not the greatest way to end the final big trip of the summer season, but a memory I won't ever fail to recall.
I didn't pay attention to which trailhead at the time. I didn't really pay too much attention to where we were actually going, only focusing on (quite fondly) the horse that carried me (Willis), the ride (I grew up riding in Kentucky), and the incredible fishing at the little lake where we camped for two nights.
I moved back west with my now wife in 2010, and have been in central Colorado since. When I finally got around to backpacking regularly shortly thereafter, map reading obviously came with it, and when I began to look at bigger trips into the best public lands we've got, Yellowstone jumped right back off the page. It was at that point that I realized I'd been somewhere, done something, and probably needed to do a better job figuring out exactly how that had happened, and it didn't take long to realize it was Sportsman Lake that had hosted us all those years before.
I wanted desperately to get back there. Posterity played a part, to be sure, but the honest truth is that I just had visceral memories of how pretty its basin was - and of how damn many fish we pulled out of that lake back then.
I planned a trip to hit it in 2023, only to fail to land a permit. I planned a trip to hit it in 2024 only for smoke to force us to audible to a Wind River trip further south.
In 2025, though, I finally made it back.
Day One - Fawn Pass TH to Lower Fan Creek (WC2) [3 or so miles]
I rendezvoused in Jackson with a trio of old friends and good hiking buddies on what I suppose I should call Day Zero, given this header. One came from Charlotte, one from Kauai, and another lives in the Hole, and I drove up to meet them for dinner and a living room floor sleep before we made our way north up 191. We picked up our permit in West Yellowstone and headed north through Idaho, eventually dropping my car at Specimen Creek TH where two of us would recoup it five days later. We then piled in the other truck and retreated south to Fawn Pass TH to head in a straightforward ~3 or so miles to WC2 to set up camp for the night.
Camp at WC2.
Given the 3 hour drive north, the stop at the ranger station for the permit, the pizza lunch, etc., it was a late afternoon start, but we'd planned it as such. Ideally, we'd reach camp around 5:30 or 6, get settled, and have the evening to fish our hearts out on Fan Creek until the sun went down and things cooled off. It was August 19th, it was hot as could be, and since the park had entered into Stage II fire restrictions we knew sitting up around a fire wasn't going to be much of an option, so fishing hard while we could became top priority.
We pulled a few little guys out, but something seemed a little off - something the trail gods would rectify with us the following morning. Still, it was nice to walk the cool water of the creek for a couple of hours, and we fell back to the banks to eat dinner as the sun began to set only for an interesting cloud pattern to begin to emerge from the west.
My buddy Will 1, me definitely still 0 that day.
A squint, a joke, and a sip of whiskey later, it became quite clear that the cloud pattern wasn't weather related. It was a fire that had sparked just over the ridge west of the Gallatin River, and we were watching its smoke plume shoot up.
It was bone dry out there. It was also quite windy, though both where we were (and where the plume was heading skyward) were clearly being hit with southern winds. Everything seemed to be moving north, and since we were looking directly west, we could tell the fire was already just slightly north of us to begin with - and, as we scoured the map and the ridgeline in view, definitely on the other side of the river itself some 3-4 miles away. So, we went to bed ready to have to abort and flee if need be, but without as much concern as we'd initially had, even if the status of our cars at the two respective trailheads much closer weren't exactly in the best of locales.
It turns out that was the start of the West Fork Fire, and we were lucky that this one didn't blow up the way so many others have. We stayed awake a little later than we otherwise would have, but with no growing glow we hit the tents in prep for a meaningful day two.
Day Two - Fan Creek (WC3) to Sportsman Lake (WD3) [8.5 miles, give or take a little swim]
Trails Illustrated #303 shows the Fan Creek Trail zagging to the north side of the creek as it heads northeast past WC3 en route to the junction with Sportsman Lake Trail.
The map at the ranger station showed the same thing.
Gaia GPS showed trails on both sides, however, and if we opted to try the route on the creek's southern bank, we'd avoid a backtrack of just under a mile seeing as we were camped on that side to begin with. If, of course, there was actually still a trail there.
As it turns out, beavers had constructed a thorough blockade of the creek just above us, something that sogged out the Fan Creek meadows in a big, big way. We were pretty pot committed once we figured out how broad the flood was, however, and we ended up just sending it through the bog to get back to the north bank and on with our day. It was already warm enough on a day that would top 80 degrees and the water was refreshing, albeit a pain in the ass, and it took us nearly an hour to slog out on the other side.
When we climbed up the bank to the trail on the north side, the breadth of the flood/pond became evident. So that's where all the fish we couldn't catch last night must be!
We pushed northeast to WC4, which had been tagged with a 'bear frequenting area' alert, and chose it as our spot to have an early lunch. The access to water, wide meadows in every direction, and abundant trees made one wonder why a bear would ever not frequent such an area, but our half-hour spent there in the growing winds yielded us sadly no ursal views.
Descending into Sportsman Lake Basin flanked by Electric Peak
We met the Sportsman Lake trail and turned east up a steady yet forgiving thousand foot incline before ultimately dropping right back down into the cirque where Sportsman Lake resides, views further east of Electric Peak behind the wide meadows our backdrop. It was only early afternoon yet the wind had whipped up into borderline gales, and we hustled down the trail towards said meadows to get out of the bending pines as quickly as we could.
Passing the patrol cabin revealed the first view that stirred a decades-old memory. The views back north across the waving grass in the meadows at point 9311 had been etched in my brain since that first trip all those years ago, and it turns out this was the first real chance to prove they'd been etched their permanently. It was all just as I'd remembered, the outfitter camp on one shore of the lake, the lake itself tucked in at the base of a craggy wall opposite the big peak to the east. The biggest difference, though, was the water level, as the mid-August heat and summerlong drought had sucked the waters in some 20 feet from where they usually were, leaving the shallows where I'd fished the first trip nothing more than exposed mud. Beyond that, it rendered the water much too far away from the rocks on which we'd previously fished, and trying to cast even the heaviest flies we'd brought that far through that wind proved to be an exercise in futility.
I felt quite guilty at that point. I'd put this trip together with my own nostalgia in mind, but also with the promise of great fishing. With the Fan Creek beaver dam the night before and wind/drought putting Sportsman out of reach, half our party was going to rise on the morning of day three without a single tall tale of fishing that part of the park to tell. And the biggest problem with that was that half the party was rising at 4 AM to hike back to the truck at Fawn Pass TH, life and work and the real world calling them back while my good buddy George and I were to head further north to High Lake and Crescent Lake before hiking out on day five.
Will fighting endlessly against the elements at Sportsman Lake
Fortunately, though, the beauty of the place kept spirits plenty high despite the lack of successful fishing. Tall tales of lives lived before our knees creaked blanketed by a brilliant sunset have a way of doing that, I suppose, and we eventually moseyed back deep into the trees behind WD3 to camp out of the winds, which howled for hours after we first tried to fall asleep.
Defeated so-called fisherman calling it a day. Rumor has it Will uses a 72 ft fly rod, I'm just lucky I could catch a tiny portion of it in frame.
Day Three - Sportsman Lake to High Lake, and the question marks beyond [~7.7 miles]
George and I woke early, though far later than the duo that beat the sun to rise and had long ago scooted out. We knew we were heading west before turning north/northeast, with High Lake where we planned to hang out for the bulk of the afternoon (and, after a pair of skunky days, hopefully catch a fish of repute). What we didn't know, though, was where we'd be camping, since we didn't have a spot in the park permitted for that night. Our plan was to cross park boundary into the Custer Gallatin National Forest and camp all dispersed-like, and had picked up some intel from the fine forums at BCP in anticipation of such a search.That third day of the trip proved to be somewhat bittersweet, albeit to the advantage of the two of us still out there hiking.
To start, we'd not really seen any wildlife on the first two days, yet on day three came across a massive bull moose in his pond on the opposite of the meadow from our trail along Specimen Creek. He was perfectly positioned far enough away (with our trail at treeline) that we felt comfortable watching him for 10 or so minutes, him going about his day as we tried to come up with which model vehicle was most akin to his size (I settled on a Mazda RX-7).
George pointing to the sixth tree over from a perfectly cool bull moose. Not sure why he liked that tree so much.
Then, as we climbed up to the ridge south of High Lake and the boundary of the park and forest, the wind finally began to give out. In fact, it laid down to such a low wisp that I almost wondered if I'd miss it, with bugs still potentially in the equation. The bugs, thankfully, never came after us, and we then stumbled on a campsite in national forest land so established and maintained we had to prove to ourselves twice it wasn't an actual Yellowstone camp that we'd missed on our maps. Prove we did, though, and that became ours for the night, conveniently outside of park boundaries at one of those odd moments where the park had fire restrictions yet the national forest did not.
We then moved just up the hill to WD4 on the southern shore of High Lake to hang out and fish for the remainder of the afternoon, and there was nobody in that site the entire time. It proved to be the perfect spot for some salami and cheese tortillas, and even provided us with the best spot for fishing we had the entire trip.
The author with a half-decent rainbow out of High Lake
Near dusk we returned to camp, ate heartily, and enjoyed a small fire while watching the stars envelope us above. The wind had sent us in far too early the previous night, and this was finally the chance to sit up a bit late and enjoy being that small in the great universe above us.
We did, though, both wake up in a stir about 2 AM, when two loud sticks snapped and something big was breathing on the trail by our tents. I had my small air-horn in one hand and bear spray in my other, the latter sure to do a great job of just gassing myself inside the tent if my trigger finger got too happy. For probably 30 seconds (that felt like five minutes) we both sat silent before finally hearing movement, and the multiple hoof clacks let us know whatever was out there was more ungulate than bear. Its sound eventually got lighter as it moved further from us, and back to sleep we went, knowing day four would take us to the highest point on the trip, the plateau east of Crescent Lake where we'd have incredible views north into the mighty Gallatin Range.
Day Four - High Lake to Specimen Creek TH [~13 miles]
Morning on the penultimate scheduled day of the trip began as it so often does, with open wonderment at whether this could, or even should end up being the actual final day of the trip. It was about 12-13 miles back to my car, a distance we knew we could cover despite the heat. The heat - god, it had been hot - was one of the things making us wonder if we'd be better off out of there and back to A/C, though we realized we'd been pretty damn satisfied with the trip already.
We'd finally caught fish. Personally, I'd made it back to Sportsman Lake, and cauterized a leaky memory of a place that built my love of Yellowstone to begin with. We'd seen a moose, likely heard a moose (the same one?), and even managed to sit up by a fire for a time and gaze into the cosmos. The two of us have done some pretty big trips together over the years - the Maze, Heart Lake, over 100 miles of the Tonto Trail, etc. - and this trip, while beautiful and engaging, didn't seem like it demanded us to stay out there any longer if we could rationalize getting out that day.
We rationalized it pretty easily. Wings and beer and a cold shower rationalized it, as did knowing a night spent in Jackson would put us 3 hours closer to being home the next day, and seeing as I had to drop him off in Vail before heading back to Denver, that would turn a 13 hour day into a slightly more manageable 10 hour one - one that would even let me tuck my kids in when I got home.
So, we took off from just south of High Lake with intent, watering up on the north shore near the East Fork of Specimen Creek's headwaters and hauling a ton of water northwest across the high plateau. FOMO kicked in immediately, of course, as we came across several places that would've been killer dry camps the night before had we chosen to pursue that end, and we eventually stopped for a snack along the cliffs that define the north boundary of the park to look out at Emigrant Peak, Sheep Mountain, and Ramshorn Peak - each well north of 10,000 feet of rocky mass.
Looking north into the Gallatins
George high above Specimen Creek
An arrowhead we came across on the plateau
When we packed up there, we knew it was mostly downhill sailing back to Specimen Creek, with some 2,000+ feet we'd shed along the way back to the car. Plus we'd return to dependable water, meaning the 4L we'd carried up to the plateau that morning would quickly become shed weight, too. When we reached Crescent Lake it was impossible not to stop and admire it for a bit, especially since WE6 was where we had on our permit to camp that evening. We got there early enough in the morning that the folks who'd camped there the night before were still there breaking camp - a dad and daughter, with her out for her first overnight backpacking trip ever. It was refreshing as hell to see how excited she was, how excited her dad was that she was that excited about doing something he clearly loved, and it just made even more sense for us to head south to our car as they headed out north to Shelf Lake - that campsite clearly deserved the level of enthusiasm of the previous night's guests more than that of two salty guys who'd had enough fun for four days already and were hellbent on amenities unafforded and unneccessary there.
The beautiful Crescent Lake
We made quick time down Specimen Creek. Its valley is incredible, but the trail is somewhat exposed for most of it. In the heat of nearly 85 degrees under the noon sun at its peak, that was more than we wanted to savor, so it was in fifth we hiked our way out. Rest assured, though, I peeled out north for a mile so I could dip my hat in Wickiup Creek before we hit the road for good, as that seemed too obvious to pass up.
Five months later and I can still smell this picture. I need to sandblast the stench out of that Gorilla.
For some final notes, I'll add that we decided to drive back through the park to Jackson in lieu of the slightly faster way down US-20 through Driggs, ID. The heat felt less imposing when you could cruise with the windows down and Willie singing on the speakers, so we peeled east in West Yellowstone and did that. And just minutes into our drive past the Gneiss Creek TH on the bluffs north of the Madison, two grizzlies were berry-sniffing and owning their moment. We stopped - everyone stopped - and after four days in the sticks on foot knowing they were out there, everywhere, we saw a pair from the car right after we got back to it.
We spent the night in Jackson, filled our guts with beer and wings and burgers, and headed back south first thing the next morning. We took the US-189/191 route south towards Pinedale, and by the time we reached Daniel Junction it was as if we were driving through hell. Turns out the Dollar Lake fire started up by Green River Lakes overnight and winds had been enough out of the north to blow its smoke straight back down through Cora and right to us. It looked and felt pretty apocalyptic, especially since I'd spent so much time right up there on a 2024 trip to Summit Lake and over Porcupine Pass. Not the greatest way to end the final big trip of the summer season, but a memory I won't ever fail to recall.
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