Spelunking, Climbing Mountains, and grazing through Meadows

 

 

 
This past week I went to the Spirit Mountain Cave for some spelunking! The cave was at the top of one of the mountains in Cody, WY. The origins of the cave are unknown, but the Native Americans used to believe it had some spiritual significance. The cave was a lot larger than I was anticipating and we spent about 2 hours wandering around and crawling deep into the cave. The rock formations inside were beautiful. There were shiny crystals and deep pink and white colors to the rocks. The cave went up and down for several layers so you could explore wherever you felt like going. If you didn't have a light source you could probably get lost in there for days!

 

View from top of Spirit Mountain

The day before exploring the cave I hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon on the Seven Mile Hole trail. The trail is actually 9 miles total, but the trail leads to a point at the bottom that is 7 miles from the lower falls of the Grand Canyon. The views on the way down of the Canyon were beautiful. The colors of the Canyon were bright and spectacular.

Half way down the Canyon:

 

Made it to the bottom!

After hiking to the bottom, I made my way up the steep trail huffing and puffing. About 3/4 of the way back the trail meets with the Washburn Spur Trail which leads you up to the summit of Mt. Washburn. Of course for some reason I made the decision to go up this trail, even though it meant adding another 8.5 miles onto my hike for the day. About 3 miles in it started to hail pretty heavily on me while I was hiking through an open meadow. I couldn't look up without the hail pelting me in the face, so I started to get pretty nervous that a bear might jump out from the woods at any moment! Finally the hail stopped and I then hiked past a thermal area and started to ascend up the mountain. The trail was the steepest trail I've hiked yet. There were no switchbacks and it was extremely difficult. It started to rain again and I was getting really cold by the time I made it to the summit. Luckily the rain cleared and I was able to get some awesome views up the top. Mt. Washburn sits right in the middle of the Hayden and Lamar Valleys, so there are amazing 360 degree views from up top. On the way down, I decided to take an old abandoned jeep road to the bottom since the other trail looked snow packed. By the end I was exhausted!

Views of the Grand Canyon, Hayden Valley, and the Meadow where I got "pelted"!

Views from near the summit:

My final hike this week before heading back to work (yes, I do have a job out here!), was through the Sentinel and Imperial Meadows to Fairy Falls. The hike was about 10 miles and mostly went through open meadows until coming up to the falls. The meadows had lots of elk grazing and had quite a few thermal features.  Fairy Falls is an impressively tall waterfall, but is on a popular hiking trail, so I had to share the view for once with other people! 

 

Imperial Meadows:

Hiking up to Fairy Falls:

Fairy Falls:

 

Sentinel Meadows: 



Wildflowers on Mars!!

This past week the weather seemed a bit questionable every day, so I opted to just go do some day hikes instead of overnighters. My first hike was to a back country thermal area called Tomato soup. The walk out to the backcountry thermal features was along a small creek, that originated in some of the larger thermal pools. The wildflowers in the open meadows were beautiful.

The colors of the thermal features, the flowers, the different grasses, and the bright blue sky were amazing.

Standing on a sliver of land between two pools:

We found 2 thermal "caves" during our hike and were able to climb inside one of them. The steam made it really difficult to take pictures while inside though.

The name explains the tomato soup thermal. And actually there were 3 of them that looked like tomato soup, which apparently is new this year.



The next day I went on a hike by myself in the Lamar Valley called the Garnet Hill Loop. This hike was really nice. It started in the open Lamar valley, then cut down into a forested area, and then ran along the Yellowstone River. The flowers in the woods, against the bright green grass, again, were beautiful. There were hundreds of yellow flowers along the river.

 

Yellowstone River in the backdrop:


The trail then looped back around the front side of Garnet Hill into a more forested area and ran along a really small creek. It started to drizzle in the woods, but was still really beautiful. At the end of the hike it again opened up into a large meadow and then into the valley. While in the meadow it started to downpour. Just as I was getting my rain gear on I spotted a black bear staring at me across the meadow. I also saw 2 pronhorn that immediately took off into the woods. I walked very briskly to the other side of the meadow keeping a close eye on the bear. By the time I got to the other side the rain had stopped and I noticed a jeep road and a horse corral. As I started up the jeep road, a ranger truck pulled up to let me know that two bears were "stalking" me through the valley. I have no idea where the 2nd one was, but I continued my brisk walk to the end of the trail and got the hell out of there!

That night I took a short 3.5 mile hike up Elephant Back Mountain for some views of the lake:

Tuesday I went on another hike in the Mammoth area. This hike was about 10 miles and went through the Hoodoos, which are really cool rock formations just above the Mammoth thermal terraces.

View of Bunsen Peak from the Hoodoos Trail:

Once through the Hoodoos, I hiked the beaver ponds loop. The views of Mt. Everts from up in the meadows was stunning. And once again there were thousands of wildflowers. The whole landscape looked like pure yellow at some points!

 

The hike took me to a beaver pond, but unfortunately I did not see any beavers. I did see some young, male elk in the forest just past the pond and was able to sit and watch them for a while without having them run off.

Beaver Dam:

Beaver Pond w/ Mt. Sepulcher in backdrop:

After the Beaver Ponds I hiked the Mammoth Terraces which made me feel like I was on Mars or the Moon! Some of the thermal features literally look like they are from a sci-fi movie or some other planet! After that I hitched a ride back to my car and sat in the back of a families truck while being pelted by hail, good way to end a long hike!

 

 

 

"The Mound" 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh yeah, and I saw another Grizzly sow and cub!