First Adventure

So there’s a reason I don’t generally take hiking recommendations from people. Sunday was one of those reasons. Holy heck. So one of my supervisor people, Matt, recommended the Hellroaring Creek Trail if I was looking to ease back into hiking and only do about 14-15 miles. I wanted to keep it in the 12-18 range ideally since I’m not in fantastic shape right now and didn’t want to do too much on my first day. Foreshadowing—that didn’t happen.

Again, I suck at sleeping, so I left the YCC facility by 6:00 and was at the Hellroaring trailhead by 6:45. There’s a giant sign that says something to the effect of “Danger—entering bear area. Travel in groups of 3 or more,” and there’s another paper that lists what to do should you encounter a bear. I counted me, myself, and I as three people and went on my way.

The first stretch of the trail isn’t terrible; there’s a bunch of switchbacks down to the creek and then a giant suspension bridge over it. That part was alright. It was loud; I’ll give it that. It lived up to its name.

The next 5ish miles reminded me of the Honest Trailer for Lord of the Rings. So much roaming, strolling, walking, hiking, and more walking. Super unexciting and not my cup of tea. But not terrible. (If you haven’t seen it, watch the Honest Trailer here.)

Then I crossed into US Forest Service land (Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness) and was extremely disappointed to find no mileage markers/signs, a crapload of trees down across the trails, trails entirely covered in water, and a muddy mess everywhere. There were a few points I considered turning around because I honestly had no flipping clue where I was besides “on the trail.” But I didn’t because quitters suck. There was also one point that I blatantly disregarded what the sign said because my gut told me it was wrong. (Fun fact, I was right and the sign was wrong about which direction to go.) So then I got into this giant snow-covered area and the trail was near impossible to pick out. I kept having flashbacks from that one backpacking trip in the Harden Lake/Smith Meadow area of Yosemite and it was not a good time. Also, by this point I’ve had to cross so many streams that are running really high right now that my boots are starting to get really wet. Then I encounter more snow and it goes up over my boots. Then I encounter more streams where there aren’t rocks or logs or anything to get across so the water also goes up over my boots. Well screw this.

AND THEN I see the grizzly bear, not 50 yards away from me. So like any educated person that reads signs on grizzly behavior, I avert my eyes, stare down at my shoes, and start whistling my go-to song (which just happens to be “If I Only Had a Brain” from Wizard of Oz). Luckily for me, the grizzly decides to run up onto the hill next to me, and then as I continue forward, still whistling away and staring to my left, it runs even further away. Yikes. The external calm that I present is occasionally a façade; this was one of those times I was internally panicking. (And no, I didn’t try to take its picture.)

So far, this hike is going great—my boots are soaked, I just had a grizzly encounter on my first flipping day in Yellowstone, and I have an unknown number of miles left back to the trailhead. And I’m getting hungry because after all, I was only planning on being out here for ~15ish miles, so I should’ve been back to the trailhead by 1300 at the latest. But nooooooo, here I am still.

So I get back to the NPS/Forest Service boundary and the sign says 6.3 miles to the trailhead. I’m thinking, “Great, I can plug this out in about 2 hours.” Well approaching two hours later I still haven’t passed any of the junctions that come before the trailhead. So what the heck. Meanwhile it’s downpouring and I’m getting cranky that I’m either being super slow or the signs are lying to me. Well turns out that sign was wrong. Later I came across a sign that said 8.0 miles to the park boundary and 1.5 miles to the trailhead. So it turns out instead of 6.3, it meant 9.5. Big fat, “screw you” to that stupid sign. I did encounter another person at 1500 though who said she had started from the parking lot about 2.5 hours prior, which I was also not thrilled about. (Luckily it only took me 1.25 hours to get back to the parking lot.) So my hamburgered feet and I made it back to the trailhead by 1615, 9.5 hours after I started. The Forest Service miles are a bit of an estimate, but if I had to guess right now, I’d say it was about a 25 mile day. No bueno. My poor feet are covered in blisters. No surprise there.

When I got back, I had new roommates and more people had arrived. We had a staff cookout at two of my supervisor people’s places—Matt and Mike. I ate a ton—I was extremely hungry; for some reason 3 granola bars, pears, and raisins didn’t replace all of the calories I burned. Weird. Someone brought sweet corn with them, and even though it wasn’t from Iowa—it was semi-decent. We played this weird game called Stump with nails and a hammer. I’m pretty good at hammering nails, but flipping the hammer first is a real challenge. I’ll get the hang of it before the summer is over—don’t you worry. :)

Lessons learned—creek trails still suck. Matt doesn’t do long hikes (he said later). Bear spray works only as a last resort and hopefully I’ll never need to actually use it, but with my record I won’t rule it out. Day One blisters suck.

Until next time my friends, until next time.