Session 2 Training Week--Garnet Hill, Heart Lake/Mt. Sheridan, Everts Ridge

So on Monday before work (training week we have abnormal schedules) I went and hiked the Garnet Hill loop in the Tower area. Since the trailhead isn’t explicitly labeled anywhere, I just parked in the gas station parking lot and walked west along the road until I found something that looked like a trail. I followed said trail until I got to this area that had a bunch of posts that you tie horses to and conveniently a trailhead sign with the Garnet Hill loop map on it. This was half an hour later people—half an hour. Why put the sign there? Doesn’t make sense.

The first 3.5 miles of the trail were extremely dull. They were also extremely wet. The grass came up to my torso and was soaked à therefore, I was soaked. My boots are another story in and of themselves, as I was wearing my back-up pair since the trail guide said this was a sunny/open hike and to make sure you applied lots of sunscreen. That led me to believe that wearing my brown ranger boots wasn’t necessary and I could wear my other pair instead. Wrong. See, my left brown boot is sort of falling apart, so I need to get new ones and then send the old ones in and see if the company will honor the warranty—they’re less than two months old…but they have been well-worn. Anyways—wasn’t wearing the best boots—got about ¼“ water in the bottoms so that they squished with every step I took. I almost turned around; it was super lame. But then I reached the trail junction with the Hellroaring area, the views got better, and I dried off. So it was worth it. And I’m not a quitter. And I still have to get to 500 miles. :)

Grumpy Bethany with her soaked legs and even more soaked boots

The portion of the trail that made the hike worth it...

On Tuesday, I finally got to do one of my long-awaited hikes: Heart Lake/Mt. Sheridan! Heart Lake BMA is closed until July 1^st, so that held me up, then the copious amounts of snow, then the lack of sleep…so I was really looking forward to this one! I got off work, went to bed by 11:00 and set my alarm for 5:00. Then my coworker who sleeps in the bunk above me was yelling and thrashing around in her sleep all night so screw sleep—good thing I got used to thriving off a few hours of sleep throughout college. No problem. :P

I left the YCC facility at 0530 and had to go around via Dunraven due to the construction closure, so it took 2.25 hours to get to the Heart Lake trailhead, which is on the South Entrance Road. By the time I started hiking, it was 0800. When you start, you’re thinking, “Great I’m going uphill, this’ll be perfect on the way back.” Then you quickly begin going downhill almost the rest of the 7.5 miles to Heart Lake and you realize how much you’re going to hate that on the way back when you’re tired. Then, as you get closer to Heart Lake, you see Mt. Sheridan and you get super duper intimidated by its size. Then you get to the trail junction for Mt. Sheridan (as pictured below) and after reading that you’re about to gain 3000 ft. in elevation in under 4 miles, all you can think is “ugh.”

First view of Heart Lake over a ridge, Factory Hill

Heart Lake

Mt. Sheridan intimidating the crap out of you

I did get to talk to a couple trail crew members that were on the porch of the Heart Lake Patrol Cabin. Their names were Becca and Johnathan, pretty cool people. Becca was telling me that the amount of snow on the trail to Mt. Sheridan was definitely passable and that I wouldn’t have a problem staying on the trail. (The backcountry conditions website still says it’s snow-covered.) Also, it’s a well-enough traveled trail that there were 7 other people either coming up or going down when I was there. Except they camped at Heart Lake…

So it took me 2.5 hours to get from the trailhead to Heart Lake. Then you have a half-mile around the lake to get the Mt. Sheridan trail junction. Then it took me an hour and forty five whole minutes to go the ~4 miles to the summit. Holy canola oil. Pretty sure my lungs were committing suicide and going into respiratory distress by the time I got to the top. That’s quite a bit of elevation gain in such a short time! Bah humbug.

Heart Lake from Mt. Sheridan summit

Yellowstone Lake from Mt. Sheridan summit

Tetons from Mt. Sheridan summit

 

Luckily, as you go up you can dream of the trip down, which only took me an hour and fifteen minutes to get back to the trail junction—shaved a whole half an hour. :) It’s a good feeling. You just put one foot in front of the other and let gravity do the rest. Super helpful that gravity thing is.

Some of the switchbacks north of Mt. Sheridan

The tiny patrol cabin just north of Heart Lake, east of the creek

The colors were super vibrant and absolutely gorgeous.

A welcoming meadow to return to--back down from Mt. Sheridan

  

So I got back to the trailhead after a terribly boring 7.5 miles back from the lake, which by the way—I did hate as predicted. Surprise. I was long overdue for a call to my brother, so I had told him from the summit that I was going to do so (although apparently I forgot to say why so my bad Joshua/Nicole). Cell service in the park is crap so I had to drive to Old Faithful to talk to them, which was fine because I was famished. I had a small cup of mac and cheese and a yogurt parfait from the lodge cafeteria because everything is a bazillion dollars and I didn’t feel like spending money (that’s what the leftover shelf in the YCC fridge is for…), so it was a rare occasion of me not having ice cream after a summit. I did have a gigantic brownie when I got back to camp though. :D

On Wednesday I stayed in the Mammoth area and hiked along Evert’s Ridge. It’s a social trail that’s in-between the Rescue Creek/Lava Creek area. Truman Evert was the guy who was lost in Yellowstone for 37 days back in 1870 and then when they found him, they named the trail in the area they found him “Rescue Creek”—too bad they screwed up and the area he was found was actually further east. Anyways, he has this giant ridge named after him. It’s the most prominent feature when you look east from Mammoth.

I parked my car in the MCC lot (Mammoth Community Center) and Alicia took me to the Rescue Creek trailhead after she was done dropping off stuff for the Mammoth Campground crew. Fun fact: I saw Becca and Johnathan repairing the massive hole in the road on my way to Mammoth! The ascent up the Rescue Creek side of Evert’s wasn’t bad at all. Don’t get me wrong—you could definitely tell you were bushwhacking up a mountain, but gradual enough that you didn’t completely suffer.

Once I got to the ridge on top, there was evidence of a trail in most places. A few times I lost it by getting sucked too low or a couple times I was too high, but for the most part it was smooth sailing up there. To the west I could see Sepulcher, Electric, Bunsen, all of Mammoth, Gardiner, the YCC, etc. so that was pretty cool.

Sepulcher and Electric from Everts

Bunsen and Mammoth Hot Springs from Everts

Mammoth Hot Springs from Everts

 Now for the tricky part…getting down the Lava Creek side. I’m going to be entirely honest and say that I am 100% confident I did not descend where most people would/could/should. I looked down from the southernmost point on the ridge and all I saw was a steep rock face, so that was a no-go. I backtracked and followed the eastern part of the ridge a ways and still couldn’t figure out where in the world I was supposed to go down. I picked one of the least steep (in my opinion) spots and headed down very cautiously and painfully slowly.

Now if you’ve read my previous post about my grievances against people incorrectly using trekking poles/walking sticks, then you’ll know not to take this lightly—I found a giant stick and utilized it to descend. Crazy right? It was about 2 inches in diameter and torso-height, and let me tell you it definitely came in handy. (It was also during this time that I encountered an unwanted number of thistles and thorny bushes. Boo hiss.)

I finally made it down to some more gradual stuff, and then I was able to rejoin the Lava Creek trail, which I then took back all the way over that interesting suspension bridge, up past the Boneyard, and back to the MCC. Slowest 9.1 miles ever. Ugh. Took me 5 hours to ascend, hike the ridge, and descend. I think a solid 1.5 hours of that was the crappy part of the descent—no joke.

P.S. My coworkers think I descended too early and needed to continue going east along the ridge further, past all of the rock cliff part that I could see and come down on the eastern side of that far part. My bad, I was flying blind. I needed a tour guide. ;)

Oddly enough, I was incredibly thirsty but couldn’t make myself eat anything. I took three bites of my sandwich and saved the rest until I got back in my car around 2:00. Clearly something is wrong with me. I did go and get more ice cream from Gardiner though so I ate some of that when I got back to the YCC. (Makes up for Tuesday’s lack of ice cream.)

I am insanely tired after not sleeping much Tuesday night either (I unintentionally stayed up until 0100 looking for jobs come September), so I think Thursday is going to be a sleep and do nothing kind of day until work at 1500. :)

Mileage count: 361.8