I enjoyed 9 days in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, September 8-16, 2012. The first two days were uneventful, but pretty, with mature grass and willows changing into their red autumn garb, like here along Winter Creek as it meanders through Willow Park..

On day three, the action picked up.  The morning dawned bright and fair in the meadow above Virginia Cascades.  What a start to the day!  That cloud even dropped a miniscule amount of moisture on me as I passed beneath it.

South of Canyon, I saw 3 mule deer bucks, in varying stages of rubbing off their velvet, just south of Canyon Village.

I think this buck asked “He’s right behind me, isn’t he?”

I had not yet photographed any elk during this rut season, so I when I heard an elk bugle from across the Yellowstone River, I crossed the river via the bridge to Artist Point, then turned into the Wapiti Lake Trailhead.  How approriate!  Wapiti at the Wapiti Lake Trailhead.  Well, sorta…  They were a bit out.

More clouds in the Hayden Valley held the false promise of rain – rain that was much needed but withheld.

I got a half-rainbow out of the deal.  No pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – a bison, instead.

I stopped at Nez Perce Ford Picnic area to strip off some layers that were needed before dawn, but too much as the day warmed.  Several bison were crossing at the ford.

Meanwhile, one cow and one bull bison remained on the opposite shore of the Yellowstone River.  The cow was determined to follow the herd, but the bull was determined to keep her segregated and would bodily block her path.

Eventually, she won free and he followed closely behind.

I should have taken his baleful stare as a warning.  I had thought they would follow the path taken by the rest of the herd and that I was safely clear of them and their path of travel.  However, when they emerged from the water, they came straight toward me.  Given his ornery and aggressive mood, that was more excitement that I had been seeking that morning.  I hustled to clear the path, adrenaline pumping.

From there I continued on to the Lewis Lake Campground, where I would make a camp for two nights.  While driving through the campground loops to select a site, I found an unoccupied site with an abandoned burning camp fire.  I was shocked and horrified.  A Red Flag warning, meaning that the conditions were ideal for fire ignition and/or rapid growth, was in effect.  The relative humidity was extremely low and there was a swirling wind.  My spade and my bucket were buried under other gear, so I drove to the campground host’s site and knocked on the camper door.  No answer.  So, I went back to that site, dug out my spade, turned over the burning log to get to embers and dumped my cooler on the fire.  That put out the flames, but the pit was still hot and could dry out and reignite very easily.  I decided I’d register (at the site right across from that one), and unpack to get my bucket and make a few more dumps to drown the fire pit.  When I returned to the registration area, I saw the campground host and informed him of the fire and that even after my attention it still wasn’t dead out and drowned.  He jumped in his truck like I’d lit a fire under his butt and raced up there and made a swimming pool out of that fire pit.  I’m still shocked at the sheer stupidity and wanton recklessness of people!

I spent the afternoon in Grand Teton National Park, making my first stop at the Cunningham Cabin.

When I arrived at Moose, WY, there where hordes of people on the bridge over the Snake River.  My instinct was to get as far away from such crowds as fast as I could, but I held back that instinct to find out what all the hoopla was about.  How appropriate!  A moose at Moose – and a large bull, at that!

Before returning to camp, I decided to see if any of the neighborhood bulls around West Thumb / Grant Village might make a dusk appearance at West Thumb.  Good call.  A harem bull was holding court, trying to keep tabs on his ladies, running off spikes, threatening visitors on the boardwalks and bugling his heart out.

I was more amused by what I found at the campsite across from mine upon my return to Lewis Lake CG than on my first arrival there – a tree at that campsite had been adorned with LED Christmas lights.  Now that’s the spirit!

Those who read my trip reports on previous trips to the Granite Park Chalet in Glacier National Park  in 2009 and 2011 may recall tales of blisters, blizzards, fog, rain, hail, sleet, rock slides and close encounters with grizzly bears.  This report will have none of that.  This trip was all about blue skies, clear views that extended for miles and miles, a glorious profusion of wild flowers, and mountain peaks showing off.

The members of the group this year included my husband, my sister, my brother-in-law, my niece and myself.   We started out divided into two groups — the hares and the tortoises.  Stacy and I are the tortoises.  I had advertised my intention to take my sweet time along the Highline Trail and Stacy and I did just that.   The distance from Logan Pass to the Granite Park Chalet is 7.6 miles with a net elevation gain of 800 feet.  Of course, along the way you lose and have to re-gain some of that elevation, but that is to be expected on any hike, even a “relatively flat” one,  in the Rockies.   The average hike time for the Highline Trail to Granite Park Chalet is 5-6 hours.  It took Stacy and me almost 8.  Unfortunately, that did mean that the last couple miles were in the heat of the day (something I never deal well with), but it was well worth it to take the time to smell the flowers.   It took the hares somewhere between three and four hours.

Stacy and I passed the trailhead around 9:45 on Saturday morning.  The hares didn’t pause at the trailhead, so there was no group photo.  Here’s Stacy:

A friend commented, upon seeing this photo, that the trail looks like it would accommodate a wheel chair.  It doesn’t take long for that wide smooth trail to change considerably.  More on that later…

I don’t think Stacy and I made it 50 yards before we had already stopped for several photos.

Twinberry Honeysuckle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A patch of pleated gentian

Mount Clements

The obligatory photo of the garden hose encased steel cable anchored to the cliff wall where the trail hugs the rimrocks

There was such an abundance and variety of wild flowers, that it seemed we were stopping every few yards.

Lyall’s Angelica

Mount Oberlin

And yet more flowers…

Fringed Grass-of-Parnassus

Cushion Buckwheat

The trail becomes a little more rugged, and the views even better.  I’d be sorry to have missed the beargrass bloom, the remnants of which is seen in the seeds on stalks, but I can’t regret the profusion of wild flowers we did enjoy.

Mount Oberlin, Mount Cannon and Heaven’s Peak (left to right)

If this looks different to you from my previous reports on trips along this trail, believe me, it looked different to me, too.  Doing this trip without fog or low-lying clouds was a totally different experience.

I’d never seen this view like this before here where the trail hugs the cliffside (no handrails on this side – I guess they figure those uneasy with heights have turned back by this point).

I’ve never gone early enough to see Lewis’s Monkeyflower along the trail and bumblebees were never out on prior trips in wet to freezing weather.

Like so many others did that day and every nice day, we stopped atop Haystack Butte, roundabout the halfway point of the hike,  for a break and to enjoy the views.  The trail cutting through the photo below goes to an overlook.

Can you see the trail we’d continue on in the photo below?

We continued stopping frequently for flowers like this trio of paintbrush…

…and this rainbow array of paintbrush

Oh!  Look up!  The backdrop of the paintbrush was the Purcell lava of Cathedral Peak.

Continuing along the trail at our tortoise pace…

… slowly but surely, we reached Granite Park and were able to look back with satisfaction.

We were just in time for a rib-eye steak dinner.  We ate our fill, but some steak remained.  We could have found room to stuff it in, but my husband offered it up to the Chalet staff.  He didn’t have to extend the invitation twice.

In the morning, my brother-in-law and niece had to leave us, as they had obligations back at home.  My husband, sister and I enjoyed spending Sunday hanging out at the Chalet…

…and enjoying the views, sometimes from our room window, feet propped up in the window sill, looking up the Highline Trail to Logan Pass, and enjoying the breeze.

Yes, those are my boots.  :^)

Even into the evening twilight, the view remained spectacular – a sweeping view of Mount Gould, Cathedral Peak, Haystack Butte, Logan Pass, Mount Reynolds, Mount Oberlin, Mount Cannon, and Birdwoman Falls.

In the morning, Stacy and I headed  out on The Loop, while my husband headed to Logan Pass along the Highline Trail.

The Loop trail makes a steep route down 2200 feet over 4.2 miles from Granite Park Chalet to a hairpin curve on Going to the Sun Road.

The flowers were different along The Loop, but there, too, we enjoyed wild flowers, like this pearly everlasting…

…and goldenrod, just to show and tell of a couple.

The Loop Trail was once a tunnel through the trees in sections.  Now only skeletons of the Trapper Creek Fire of 2003 stand sentinel along the trail.

Our last photo  stop along The Loop trail was on the footbridge to enjoy the cascades.

More photos from the trip are here:  http://www.bigskycountry.net/graniteparktrip_2012