This is the beginning of the pics of my 16 hour adventure in the Back Country of Yellowstone's Rugged and Beautiful Northwest Corner..... on a trail referred to as Sky Rim.
Pics of the route, elevation profile and description of this hike from the Falcon Guide "Hiking Yellowstone National Park" as well as a picture of the route on the Trails Illustrated Mammoth Hot Springs NW Yellowstone National Park map was provided in a prior post....
I was talking with my son last night about this hike and told him about something that seems to happen on every "adventure" I take.
For whatever reason, I subconsciously make decisions that lead to and put me into a relatively precarious, untenable, uncomfortable and dangerous situation of being Lost.
It is subconscious because at the time, everything seems relatively logical.
I got up early Friday morning, after having done a long hard mountain bike ride and Zumba the day before, so my legs were a little tired and sore, and thought.....
Wills - here you are in Montana, just 80 miles north of your favorite place on earth.... Yellowstone National Park..... and you've taken a long bike ride there.... but no hike.
And you've never driven down from Bozeman toward Yellowstone....
And the Northwest side of the park is rugged, remote and beautiful.
And my wife and I had done a beautiful, long backpacking trip along a high elevation ridgeline trail called Sky Rim in that area....
So.... Let's go do that same route.....
On a Day Hike.
Yeah... that's reasonable.... right?
So I threw all my day hiking stuff together, borrowed a small backpack from the motel front desk attendant, stopped at the convenience store and bought a couple of breakfast sandwiches, some beef jerky and 4 quarts of water and hit 191 south towards West Yellowstone....
Entered the park just about the time it was getting light....
About 30 minutes later than I would have liked, but I was going as fast as I could....
To this great adventure.
Got to the trailhead...
And quickly organized and packed everything....
On the right was all the food I was taking.... quite a bit.... but I knew it was 21 miles and at 1.5 to 2.0 mph hiking speed, it would be a good 12 - 14 hours of hiking.... meaning, even if all went well, I would be covering the last few miles at the end in the dark...
Note that the left 3 bags are all Survival type stuff - lighter, fire starter stick, whistle, duct tape, trail marking tape, Leatherman, Headlight, set of small but powerful binoculars, etc.....
Cause on a hike like this..... You never know what can happen....and have to assume you may have to survive overnight....
And it was freaking cold.....
Not shown in this pic was the extra clothes I was taking....
An extra set of light gloves (did not bring my heavy cold weather gloves which was a mistake), a set of waterproof, breathable rain pants (made for cycling), a spandex hood, 2 extra sets of socks, Pearl Izumi light waterproof windbreaker.....
And that's about it.... everything else I had on.
One other thing I didn't have with me which I usually bring on a hike where I may have to spend the night is at least 1, preferably 2 - 55 gallon plastic drumliners - basically huge thick mil plastic garbage bags. They roll up pretty small, weigh almost nothing and can be used as a waterproof sleeping bag in a pinch.... Retain a lot of your body heat and keep you dry and insulate you from the ground.
So I took off from the trailhead with 3 quarts of water, 24 oz of Creatine mix, a breakfast taco, a canadian bacon breakfast sandwich, a blueberry muffin, 2 bananas, 2 small granola bars, a bag of dried fruit / nut trail mix and a 3 oz bag of beef jerky and all the clothes and supplies already described....
Quite a load - probably at least 20 lbs (cause I had nearly 4 qts of liquid which weighs about 8 lbs and at least 2 lbs of food plus all the other gear.
So I'm a Happy Hiker taking off from the Daly Creek Trailhead on a great day hike and adventure.
And there's Sky Rim in the distance..... 5.7 miles in the distance to be exact.
So let's get started.....
I left the trailhead at 9:35 Am Central time, 8:35 AM Mountain time....
Keep that in mind as the day unfolds.
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