This is a long and bandwidth-rich post. It will take some time to download because of the photos.
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OK, settling down now post hike. Here’s a few photos and annotations on gear, the trip, weather, etc.
Overall, this was one of the most satisfying walks I’ve done in awhile. Not a lot of distance, still only 90% from my back injury. Hiked up to about 10-11 miles/day, could’ve done a little more, but not much more than that at this time.
We spent 9 days out, with one layover day (day 4) so my Jewish hiking partner could observe the Sabbath (Saturday). I spent the day hiking and fishing the valley near our camp.
I hit the trail with 21 pounds including food, my partner had 26 or so. I skimped on food big time, hoping to make up the calories by catching trout. The temperatures were quite cold, we had some wet and very cold weather, and I was worried about the fishing. The fishing was tough, but manageable and calorie wise my gamble paid off. I averaged about 16-18 oz of food per day, not including fish, which I ate on 4 of the days.
Weather was quite good – not a lot of precipitation – but cold. We had nights cold enough that our full Platypus bottles were mostly frozen by morning. My X6 watch, laid near me and under my tarp, read 21-23 degrees on those mornings. Ambient temperatures were likely a little colder than that. We had 2.5 days of pretty foul and very cold/wet weather: always rain, but temperatures down to 30 degrees. Due to an inversion, the precip stayed as rain where we were during those days (in valleys). We did walk through snow on the high passes from that storm.
OK, on to the pics:
1. Stealth Zero NANO Tarp @ Pebble Creek, Yellowstone National Park. This was our first night’s camp, one of the most little-used campsites in Yellowstone National Park, on Pebble Creek. It is perched on a nice bench and has an impressive “bay window” view of the Pebble Creek Valley. The tarp is the new Stealth Zero NANO, 4.2 oz! I was way more impressed with the NANO fabric than with the LITE (spinnaker) fabric. It is more waterproof, less bulky (folds nicer), and plenty strong for gusty winds and 3-season ultralight backpacking. Also, it doesn’t shrink so much like nylon and polyester woven tarps. See the link above for more info (Premium Members only can view/buy, for the first production runs through the new year, however, because they will be in limited supply for awhile).
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2. Morning #2, Slough Creek, Yellowstone National Park. I’m pretty much wearing all my clothes. It’s dang cold. Unlike summer, when you know you’re going to be warm when the sun comes up, this is a different ballgame. I think it’s around 9:30 am at the time this photo was taken and it’s still below freezing. This is a beautiful area: huge meadows, campsite on a bench, and very open. Normally, when spending the night at this camp, it’s a safari show: grizzly bears, moose, elk, and wolves frequent the meadow. Nothing this time around, though…
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3. Slough Creek, YNP. We would spend three nights in the Slough Creek valley; here, we’re walking up to the upper reaches of the creek and crossing out of YNP into the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness. My pack for this trek was a McHale Summit Pack. With frame stays, wand pockets, kangaroo pouch (sewn-in), compression cord, and top pocket, 33 oz and around 2,400 ci total capacity. Custom fit, extraordinary comfort, my favorite all-round backpacking pack. This is the first trip I’ve ever crammed 9 days worth of stuff into it. Hiking clothing is a Smartwool Microweight L/S Crew, Cloudveil Inertia-fabric pants, Smartwool trail running socks, Montrail Hardrock shoes, Tilley LT5 hat, Life is Good cotton bandana…
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4. After crossing across the YNP N boundary, the pound-per-day food diet is catching up and I need to eat, so we stop to catch some fish for lunch. 15 minutes later, I had a couple in the bag, which was a very good thing. These are Yellowstone Cutthroat trout.
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5. On Day 4, while my partner rested in camp observing the Sabbath, I explored the far upper reaches of Slough Creek. I left camp in intermittent rain with the temperature around 48 degrees. I assumed it would get warmer, so I simply brought my rain jacket with me. An hour and a half walk from camp, I got blasted by the Mother of all Fall Thunderstorms. Within 10 minutes, I was getting blasted with freezing rain, hail, and temperatures down to 36 degrees. I got cold quick and finally took refuge in a willow thicket and curled up in the fetal position, shivering my brains out, hoping it would pass. Which of course it did.
My raingear for this trek included a Driducks jacket (4.8 oz) and a pair of Montbell ultralight rain pants (Goretex paclite) that I hacked off below the knees to bring them down to 3.0 oz, knicker style that could be pulled on over shoes easily. I loved them. They are a great solution for the backpacking fisherman who gets his lower pants wet anyways from wading. Contrary to my fears, water did not wick up my hiking pants to wet my trunk area. But then again, I treat my hiking pants pretty aggressively with ReviveX wash-in repellent, so wicking is probably compromised.
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6. As the storm raced up the valley, it let the sun peek out for an hour or so, with spectacular lighting and rainbows. This is at around 3:30 in the afternoon. Note the Armageddon-like wrath occuring in the distance.
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7. On Day 5, we broke our “layover camp” and set off again in the cold rain. Before leaving the Slough Creek valley, we stopped for an on-trail breakfast at an abandoned hunting camp (note the tables and chairs). It was so nice having a hot breakfast and big pot of tea on the trail this morning. This photo has a good shot of the “Paclite Knickers”.
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8. Climbing out of the valley, we hit our third major pass of the trip. All of the passes we crossed had some snow, the snow you see in this photo is fresh from that night/morning. I’m using a 2.7 oz silnylon pack cover from Integral Designs (product testing). It’s the nicest pack cover I’ve used so far – it fits so securely to your pack, and around your hip belt (in slots just for that purpose) that even in hard rain my pack stayed completely dry. In spite of the argument of pack liners vs. pack covers, the wieght of a pack cover, in this case (with my McHale pack made of Spectra ripstop), easily makes up for savings of water weight absorbed by a pack when not using a pack cover.
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9. Descending from the divide, we come into view of the magnificent upper meadows of the Buffalo Valley, another key home to wolves, elk, moose, and grizzlies.
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10. On the morning of Day 6, we took it easy: warming up with lots of hot drinks after a very cold night with some pretty damp down bags…we took the opportunity to sleep until the sun came out, and dry our gear. Man, am I glad I had the Cocoon on this trip! It provided great warmth, even for hanging around camp at night in subfreezing conditions.
In addition to my hiking clothing and raingear, I brought a GoLite Ether wind shirt (3 oz), Cocoon Pullover and the 1.8 oz pair of ultralight polypropylene tights by Sahale (Early Winters). I also waffled a lot prior to the trip about taking a 5th torso layer: WM Flight Vest (5 oz) or similar. not wanting to deal with the bulk, I opted for a 4-oz GoLite C-Thru L/S Crew. It was a great choice, leaving me with a totally functional (breathable) system for morning and evening hiking, and layered over the windshirt, a great way to maintain a nice tight microclimate while sleeping.
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11. Climbing up (again) out of the Buffalo Drainage, we were to cross our final big pass today. Here, we are taking the long walk across Telephone Basin, one of the most remote, and seldom-visited alpine basins in the Yellowstone area. Formerly, this was home to some of the biggest elk herds in the U.S. only 10 years ago. Now, they’ve been severely thinned (since the reintroduction of wolves) and hunters of this area are not happy about it! We saw neither elk nor wolves here, but did run onto some pretty fresh bear tracks.
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12. After crossing Hummingbird Pass, we descending down into Hellroaring Creek, where we’d walk its length for the next three days. We stayed at a campsite (now back in Yellowstone National Park) that offered all the amenities: great firepit, creekside camping, and a high bear pole. We dutifully hung our food in trees or on poles each night. Both of used the UrsaLite Bear Bag System, which made the chore so much easier and quicker.
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13. We built campfires on four of the eight nights of our trek. In addition to the warmth and security from the wild beasts of the forests, they allowed us to dry wet shoes and socks and to burn our garbage. Proudly, we built each fire without firestarters using wet tinder. It was great practice for the “real thing”!
That night, we did have a wolf visit our camp. He came within just a few feet of the tarps, then ran off when I shined my light at it.
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14. I brought an 8 oz (net) MSR IsoPro fuel canister for this trek, with a Vargo Jet-Ti stove. The Jet-Ti is a fuel miser, simmers very low, is one of the lightest canister stoves on the market, and is very well built. It’s my favorite canister stove. However, the cold weather / hot drinks and frequent trout meals were taking its toll on my fuel consumption and I was almost out by Day 7. So, I switched over to cookfires, saving the precious fumes remaining in the canister for our last campsite in Yellowstone, where we weren’t allowed to build fires…
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15. A shot of our upper Hellroaring Camp – a nice forested refuge in an ecosystem where 2 million acres were burned by fires in ’88.
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16. Elk get big out here. This is only a 6×6 rack, but clearly, would qualify as a trophy for just about any hunter.
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17. Hiking down the Hellroaring is an interesting experience: almost overstimulating due to the variety of terrain encountered in such a short distance. Subalpine meadows, thick forests, open burn areas, rugged canyons, and finally, it opens up to the Hellroaring Plateau teeming with free ranging wild Buffalo. It’s a cool place. Entering the plateau, is where this picture is taken.
Note my pack size – it’s getting smaller and my top lid is now flopping down!
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18. This is another good shot of the pack, giving you some perspective of its thickness. I’m not a fan of fat packs that hang off your mid/lower back like a tumor. They simply aren’t comfortable over long distances. So, my McHale is tall enough to extend the length of my torso (but not much more), thin enough to keep the load as close as possible to my back, and narrow enough to allow my arms to swing freely. I really don’t understand why other manufacturers don’t build a pack with this type of profile. It’s so comfortable and stabilizes both capacity and undervolume loads perfectly.
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19. At our last camp, at the confluence of Hellroaring Creek with the Yellowstone River in the roaring Black Canyon. Good, but difficult fishing for rainbows, cutt-bows, and Yellowstone Cutthroat are the rewards. This is a noisy place. Too bad YNP doesn’t allow packrafting down that river… :)
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20. Enjoying the last sunset of our trek, looking back at the Hellroaring Plateau, which we had hiked down earlier that afternoon.
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21. It still boggles my mind, even after all these years, that one can carry so few supplies and engage themselves in a wilderness experience for a week or two without resupply. Even in cold, wet conditions, surprisingly little is actually required to keep your warm, dry, and comfortable. What you see in this photo is what I took on the trek: shelter (pitched), bag and bivy (under tarp), clothing (worn, mostly), pack (on ground), and about 5-6L volume of other gear (cooking, hydration, navigation, essentials, etc., on the ground at the front of the tarp).
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22. And, at the finish, on the suspension bridge over the Yellowstone in the Black Canyon. We both are outwardly dressed quite similar: Tilleys, Smartwool, Cloudveil, Montrail, and McHale pretty much round out our ensembles!
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23. Here’s a closer shot of the gear I brought on this trek; I think this might have been taken around Day 6. The five stuff sacks at the right contain: (1) insulating pullover, spare socks, tights; (2) bivy sack; (3) tarp; (4) raingear; and (5) wind shirt, gloves, and hat. I “spent” a total of 1.8 ounces on these five stuff sacks, but it was well worth the organization on trail and the ability to keep the pack packed well (by placing clothing and other stuffed items not used during the day into the nooks and crannies of the lower pack).
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24. Finally, this shot, although again sort of out of order shows the “narrow”-ness of my McHale Summit Pack: allowing my arms to swing and the pack’s profile to remain trim to maintain a center of gravity as close as possible to that of my body’s without worrying too much about how to pack the pack.
Hope you enjoyed the photos and comments, because I sure enjoyed the trek!!
