Electric Peak!

The day after hiking Specimen Ridge I set out to conquer Electric Peak! The hike is about 18-19 miles out and back. I went with one of the medical students, Avi, here at our clinic. We got an early start and got to the trail head a little after 7am....

View of Electric from the beginning of the hike:

About 3 or 4 miles into the hike, getting closer. The weather was absolutely perfect, only a few clouds in the sky! You do not want to hike electric peak in bad weather. It's named for the fact that it attracts lightning in thunderstorms!

Getting closer still! Still have a long way up though!

Here we are starting up the ridge line to the peak. The views of the forests and meadows we just hiked through can be seen below. The climb started to get pretty steep at this point:

View of Sepulcher Mountain and Cache Lake below:

Getting even steeper, and starting to lose the trail. My legs were definitely starting to feel fatigued at this point!

Here we are finally getting into the scree fields at the top of the mountain. The trail was really hard to follow up here, and we actually ended up getting off trail and having to climb up rocks and through the scree. This made it really slow going and hard on the knees and legs!

Summit is in view!

Definitely did not want to lose your footing up the top! You would be going straight down to your death!

Views of the Gallatin Mountain Range to the Northwest, almost at the summit!

So close, yet so far!

Scrambling up the last bit of scree/rock to get to the summit!

We made it!! Amazing 360 degree views!! 10, 968 feet!

Specimen Ridge

This past week I went on two big hikes. The first one being Specimen Ridge. I started at the Yellowstone River Picnic Area trailhead which is in the northeast section of the park. The first 2 miles of the trail was right along the Yellowstone River and the Calcite Springs.

After about 2 miles the trail took a sharp left to start the ascent up to specimen ridge. From the ridge, there were amazing views of Mt. Washburn to the South. The yellow wildflowers up on the ridge were amazing. I saw a few pronghorn and a few bison while hiking along the ridge. The trail was a bit hard to follow at times due to all of the other bison trails, but there seemed to be enough trail markers to stay on track.

Mt. Washburn:

The Ridge Line:

Just before coming up to the high part of the ridge line shown above, I had to hike through some meadows and in some forested areas. As I was hiking along in one of the meadows there were a lot of hills that took me up and down, up and down. Upon coming down one of the hills, all of a sudden I saw a Grizzly right off to my left! I quickly turned around and started walking back the direction I came. The bear didn't see me at first, but once I turned back around he was bolting across the meadow running away from me! I must have startled him. Since the meadows were so hilly, I wasn't sure if he ran up into the meadow further or into the forest off to my right. I noticed that the trail went into the forest. I wasn't sure what to do at that point. I didn't want to hike into the forest because my visibility would be much lower and the bear could be right behind any tree or stump! I pondered for awhile if I should just go back or if I should push forward hoping I didn't get eaten! Ultimately I decided to take it really slow and take the trail through the woods. I had my bear spray unclipped and ready to go, and I was yelling "HEY GRIZZ!" and clapping the whole time. About 5 minutes into the woods I heard some growling. I almost sh** my pants! I turned around and there was a....BISON! I picked up the pace and got the hell out of those woods as quickly as I could!! Luckily I never ran into the bear again, but that was another close call!!

About 13 miles into the hike I made it to the top of the ridge, Amethyst Mountain. There were beautiful purple flowers up the top and the views of the northeast mountains were absolutely beautiful. The sky was a little smoky from some fires going on in Idaho, but it was still breathtaking. From the top of Amethyst, you could see almost the entire Lamar valley and the junction of the Lamar River with the Soda Butte Creek. 

After soaking in the views from the top, I started the descent back down. A mile or so down I ran into a herd of bighorn sheep!

The trail down had amazing views the entire way and led me directly to the Lamar River. As I was heading down there were some dark storm clouds rolling in. The winds got really strong and thunder started crashing in the distance. The sun seemed to stay out for quite awhile on the trail though and I was able to make it all the way to the base of the river before it started to downpour on me!

Storm clouds rolling in:

Giant Dandelion!

Once I made it to the base of the river I had to ford the river. Since it was already thunder/lighting and down pouring, I wasn't too concerned about getting wet, so I just put on my sandals and waded across the river as quickly as I could. After crossing the river I had about 1.5 miles left until I got to the road. Luckily once I got to the road I was able to find a nice french family to give me a ride back to my car!

Mt. Sepulcher and Climbing in the Tetons

The day after hiking Bliss Pass, I went up to Mammoth and hiked Sepulcher Mountain. Sepulcher overlooks Gardiner, MT and also looks out onto Electric Peak. I started the hike on the backside of the mountain and took a bunch of switchbacks up to the top.

Electric Peak to the left, Sepulcher to the right:

Electric peak was just staring at me the whole way up, calling for me to climb that next! 

Starting to head down:

After making it to the summit, I started descending on the side facing Gardiner. There were a bunch of cliffs and cool rock formations  on this side of the mountain and the trail was VERY close to the edge at points.

View of Gardiner from up top:

Trail is getting VERY close to the edge!

Mt. Everts in Mammoth:

 I originally planned on doing the 13 mile loop so that I would end back at my car, but after the hike the previous day my legs were really tired, and instead I decided to cut off 3 miles and hike into Mammoth to get some ice cream!

Me Staring at my next conquest, Electric!

Wednesday I finally made it down to Grand Teton National Park. I went with one of the other PA’s and one of the nurses to do some rock climbing. We started at Jenny Lake which is right at the base of the Tetons and hiked half way around the lake to the Cascade Canyon area. Just past the Canyon trail is another trail that leads up to some cliffs on the side of the mountain. The cliffs looked very intimidating and I was getting a bit nervous about climbing up them.

View of the Cliffs we were about to climb:

Still a bunch of snow up there!

It took us about an hour to put on all of our climbing gear, to go over knot tying, climbing strategies, and safety info before we got going. The PA is an experienced climber, so he went up first and placed all the protection gear and then anchored in up at the first pitch. Next was my turn!



At first the climb started out fine, but about halfway up I got to a point where I just could not find a place to put my feet next and my muscles were starting to get really fatigued. I kept trying and trying, but it seemed like my leg muscles wouldn't stop shaking! I really thought I physically wasn't going to be able to go any further, even though in my mind I really wanted to make it up! After about 5 minutes or so I somehow pushed through and continued to climb. I hit one other rough spot, but I was finally able to make it to the top.

I hadn't even looked down yet because I was so focused on the physical aspect of the climb. Once I did look down though….holy anxiety!! I was nervous as hell! I found a rock to wedge myself between up on the pitch and waited about 35 minutes or so for the other guy to climb up. The views of Jenny Lake and the Grand Tetons were awesome, but honestly I couldn't stop thinking about falling and dying! After a long 35 minutes I was finally able to repel back down to the ground.

After having some time to ponder on the experience, I think I would rather mountaineer with some minor climbing, rather than climb straight up sheer cliffs in the future! It was a great experience though!