Grizzlies on Bliss Pass

After this past week I can barely move my arms and legs! Serious muscle fatigue and cramps going on! Sunday I slept in and then went for a run to a natural bridge. The bridge was made of rock that had been carved into an arch or bridge from past water flow. After that I hiked out to Cascade Lake and checked out the Mud volcano area. It was a pretty low key day.


The next day though, for some reason I decided to go on a 22 mile journey through the northeast section of the park. I started at the Warm Creek Trail and the hike started with a serious upwards climb.

The views of the “Thunderer” mountain from up top were breathtaking in the early morning light.

 

Once getting to the top I had to hike through some snow to get down into some meadows between all of the mountains. The meadows were beautiful. There were 360 degrees of mountains all around, and there were wildflowers and creeks everywhere. I had to ford a few of the deeper creeks/rivers, but they were all manageable.






 After hiking through the meadows for a few hours I came to the Bliss Pass trail junction. Here I had to ford a river and then start the climb up to the top of the 10,000+foot pass.

 Bliss Pass beyond the river I needed to cross:





The trail looked like it was headed straight up to some serious cliffs, so I was a bit nervous that I might have to scramble up some rock faces up the top. Luckily, once I reached the top there was a small open area with no cliffs that the trail led me up to. At the top of the you could see all of the meadows I had just hiked through and you could see well into the Beartooth wilderness. After eating some lunch up the top, I started to make the descent down the pass towards the Slough Creek trail.

 

View of the Meadows I hiked through below:

 View of the Beartooths:

As I was heading down I noticed some really small prints in the mud that somewhat looked like grizzly cub tracks. They were so tiny though, and I didn't see any sow prints.  A few miles up I was still seeing the tracks and then I saw a large, fresh grizzly scat. At this point I knew there was a sow with cubs really close by! I started clapping and making lots of noise, yelling “Hey BEAR!!, letting them know I was there and coming down the trail. After doing this for about an hour and not seeing anything I thought I was in the clear. I was wrong. I came around the next bend and there was a HUGE sow with THREE cubs!! Luckily they were up on the mountainside off the trail about 100 yards away. The sow was staring at me and I completely stopped in my tracks and tried to appear non-threatening.  I started to walk further down the mountain and she started to walk up the mountain. We both were keeping a very close eye on one another though and after about 15 minutes of walking down, I was finally far enough away to breath! I think if I hadn't been making noise though I could have gotten into serious trouble and found them right on the trail.

After the close encounter I continued down, down, down and finally made it to the slough creek trail. This trail is an old jeep road trail and was very well maintained. The trail was in an open valley with the creek/river running right through the middle. The scenery with the mountains I had just climbed in the backdrop were awesome.  I took the slough creek trail for another 8 miles before finally making it back to the road and hitching back to my car! It was one of the most beautiful , and at times scary, hikes of the season!

View of Slough Creek from Bliss Pass:

  

Slough Creek with view of Mountains I had to climb in backdrop: