I got to the top of this ridge and the wind was blowing at least 25 - 30 mph and it was cold and I was cold.
Found this cairn of stones...
And NO TRAIL..... Nothing..... just this grassy slope. Based on the time elapsed from hitting the Sky Rim Trail, I should've gone 4 miles which would put me on Big Horn and I thought that last climb was the steep slope leading to Big Horn....
But I was wrong.... I decided to peel off the very steep south side of the slope and work my way down and hopefully find the trail (that didn't exist) at the bottom of the hill.
Video of this slope and my thought process flawed as it was....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWzst0Ic0Do&list=UU5JGx4cor4nTTTbn6FNWgLg
The steep wooded slope terminated into a rocky slope where I was basically skidding down on my butt into the drainage at the bottom.
I'll show a picture of the marked up trail map to show where I went wrong in the next post.
Bottom line is that I followed the drainage down to the point where it terminated into a 30' drop off with no way down.
That's about a half mile beyond the point shown in this pic.
It was at that point with daylight going fast that I set down and realized I probably wasn't going to get out of here tonight.
Pretty matter of fact.... No Panic.... Just made a mistake.... Didn't evaluate the information I was given correctly and ended up in a bad situation.
It's when you get in a real bind that you call someone that can help....
So I called my wife....
She took the facts down.... my approximate location.... and said "OK, I'll call the Ranger's office and get them to call you".
5 minutes later I got a call from my wife and the Park Ranger almost simultaneously.
I told the Park Ranger what I had done and where I had come from and described my surroundings and he calmly and cheerfully said....
"I know right where you are.... You can't get out that way.... You've got to go back up the hill, find the 2 orange and white posts (which I had seen earlier on the cold, grassy slope) and then call me back".
So I spent the next 2 hours climbing back up the drainage to the top of the slope.
By the time I got there....
Video of the surroundings and my plan to get out of here....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to7zQy_lQAI&list=UU5JGx4cor4nTTTbn6FNWgLg
The sun had gone down....
I called the Park Ranger back and got a bearing on where the trail came off the end of the long grassy slope.
No more pics after that.... it was dark!
I worked my way over to the base of Big Horn Peak and then spent at least an hour and a half bear crawling or 3 pointing my way up the steepest slope I have ever hiked up.
Got to the top and found the metal sign the Ranger had described and called him back.
He directed me to the next sign 200 yards down the meadow and then to the sign post for Black Butte Creek Trail which would take me all the way out to the road.
After a couple of failed attempts and a 10 minute walking discussion with the Park Ranger guiding me down the slope based on my description of what I was seeing, I found the beginning of Black Butte Trail and hiked the remaining 10 miles out to the the road and then 2 miles down the road from the Black Butte Creek Trailhead to the Daley Creek Trailhead where my SUV was parked. It took me 5 hours from 8:30 pm - 1:15 am.
I had purchased a new very powerful headlight for this trip and it definitely made the difference on the 5 hour hike out in the pitch black of night.
So I ended up hiking from 8:30 am Friday morning till 1:15 am Saturday morning or almost 17 hours straight in Yellowstone's Northwest Back Country on the Sky Rim Trail.
See the next post for my route.
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