The second season of Team Xtreme is destination Yellowstone. The trip began with myself and Kelly gathering all our gear and food, and cramming it some how all into the Prius. We headed out Saturday evening to go up to Spokane to get Jason from the airport. Since we have to go north to go south, we decided to spend the night outside of Spokane to not have to drive back north to get to Yellowstone the next day.
We had a nice drive to Gardiner Montana Sunday and headed to bed ready to get into Yellowstone. Monday morning we woke up and drove excitedly into the park, expecting to see something out of Jurassic Park, tons of animals running wildly through park. But alas, it was not meant to be, so we drove to our first destination, Mammoth Hot Springs.
Mammoth was something completely out of this world and our first understanding of the unique landscape that Yellowstone contains. The amount of just crazy stuff that it contains was truly astounding.
We then headed to Tower Falls to see what that was all about only to find that the path down to the view was washed out so no Tower Falls for us. But there we finally met up with Larry. We then drove over to the Canyon area of Yellowstone for our first night of car camping. Lucky for us it started snowing on the way over there. Nothing like snow when camping. We set up our tents and made the decision to hit the lounge to get warmed up. After waiting long enough for the snow to pass by we went back to the campsite and bundle in for the morning.
The next morning we packed up the camp and started exploring the Canyon area and started at the upper falls and hiked to the lower falls. It was gorgeous out and the scenery was impressive. At the lounge the night before some lady was telling us about Uncle Toms Trail so we hiked that. It is 328 metal steps to the bottom of the falls. Well worth it but a little unnerving in the fact that you could see through the stairs.
We continued on to Bridge Bay Campground for our second night of car camping. This was very close to Yellowstone Lake and very pretty. We hit the lounge again to get out of the cold and got some groceries. After the lounge, we had smores and gin and tonics by the camp fire. VERY XTREME!!!!!
Wednesday we headed to Old Faithful for our final night of lodging before the back packing portion of the trip. We watched with delight as once again Old Faithful went erupted. Larry headed to the airport to pick up his sister Laura, so Jason, Kelly and I toured all the geysers and stumbled upon a Bison who tried to stare me down, but he blinked first and left us alone.
Laura and Larry made it back from the airport and we had a nice dinner and finished prepping for 5 days in the wilderness. Thursday morning we woke up and headed to the trail head. Loaded up our packs and started walking. The first days hike took us about 9 miles to our campsite next to Heart Lake. A very nice hike walking by leach infested streams, geysers and thermal features. We set up camp and headed to bed early since this campsite didn't allow camp fires. Booooooo.
Friday we were staying put at this camp site but embarked on our XTREME day hike to the top of Mt Sheridan. Our campsite was at about 7700 feet elevation and we were going to try and summit to the top of Mt Sheridan at 10,305 feet!
We hiked to the top and saw all of Yellowstone from there. We could also see the Grand Tetons as well as where the next three days of travels would take us.
We were going to be walking all around Heart Lake! The next morning we started a short 6.6 mile hike to another campsite. There we found a giant elk skull and rack next to the camp fire. Yeah camp fire! We had to cross some streams on the way in and so we needed to dry our water shoes by the fire. We explored the area some and stumbled into some river otters in the water next to our campsite.
The next morning would end up being our longest and most trying day. We had to ford 2 rivers a couple of times each to end up at our last camp site, a 5 star campsite! The fording was fun and the weather was pretty warm so the icy water felt nice. The guide book talked about 5 crossings we would have to do, so after the 5th one we were quite motivated. We dried our feet, put on our boots and headed down the trail. Only to find a secret 6th fording. NOOOOooooo. We crossed this river and trudged on another 3 miles to our campsite. We saw the sign 8J1, finally we had made it, we headed down the path to our campsite to find it 10 more minutes of hiking to finally reach the campsite. What a long long hiking day. Some deer were there to greet us along with a rabbitt. The weather was perfect and the sunset was incredible. Allowing us to agree with the 5 star rating.
The next morning we woke up to a group of coyotes howling away and to a very cool sunrise over the lake. Our last day in the wilderness. We packed up and hiked out the last 10 miles in great spirits and lots of laughter.
Once out we drove to West Yellowstone and gorged on pizza and beer to celebrate a great trip. We are ready for Team Xtreme Season 3!!!!!