Mallard Lake
Bear Scat at the Trailhead
The first actual area we wanted to stay at was near Old Faithful. We stopped at the first village we crossed in West Thumb which offers a view to the Yellowstone Lake. We opened the door to the back country office and a woman ranger approached the desk. It took us much longer to fill out paperwork this time not only for our lack of picking campsites but her computer had been down all day. She was nice enough to help us with some details such as the last time she was by said village was because a girl had crashed into a buffalo. Sounds terrible. Anyhow, she set us up for two nights in a row, we would have to drive in between days to get to our campsites. She didn’t make us watch the video again and the last thing she said was, “and you have your bear spray?” I looked at my friend, ” no, we have been doing all this without it.” She looked at us as if we were crazy. She gave us a can from behind her counter, “take mine, I have so many at home.” Explained how to use it then we were out the door and 40 minutes later at the Old Faithful Visitor Center.
The decision was to blow off taking time to watch Old Faithful erupt. We used the bathroom to wash our faces, I inhaled a double cheeseburger from the restaurant in the village, bought some overpriced Neosporin and hand sanitizer to clean open nicks on my hand, laced back up and took off. Not twenty steps into this trail we crossed a large bear pie, a ranger had mentioned a few bears spotted in the area, a single male and mother with some cubs.
The Hike
This hike was approximately 7.3 miles out and back with 900 feet of elevation gain. Somewhere in the first hike I noticed my Achilles tendon on my right leg was sore, to the point where I felt pain in every step I took. The first thing I told my mother before doing such a trip was along the lines of, “I will either go out there and die or come back. Survival of the fittest.” There was no way in hell I was going to let this inconvenience stop me from exploring, so from this hike specifically I suffered every step while limping here and there. This was a result from lacing up to tight.
My second hike ever was on a beautiful sun shining day. After wearing the same clothes for the second day straight I peeled off layers as my body started to sweat. The constant climb in elevation took a lot out of us, every few hundred feet we would find some shade and grab our breath. For me, during these hikes I realized as much as I needed the rest, I wanted to get to the destination more. I desperately wanted to get to our campsite where I could sit for more than a few minutes and not hike further up a mountain with an estimated 30 lbs on my back. Throughout the first hike I realized it was easier to just always hike with my camera in my hand. Every time we would wrap around a new trail section I would snap a few shots, fall behind 20 steps and continue keeping pace. Once we got through the snow-covered forest at the peak we finally started to decline again until Mallard Lake revealed itself.
What a relief it was to finally get to our campsite, on the edge of a shining lake and the view across the way where open hills with some staggered trees stood bare from a presumed forest fire. We hung our clothes on nearby trees to dry out, put our tent, bed pads and sleeping bags opened on the hill soaking up all the sun. Everything was so damp from the previous night of being covered in snow it would have made this night worse than the last. After we started another fire, it got dark quick. Under those conditions we strung a line over our bear pole 25 feet in the air and set up our tent on top of snow again.
That night was more enjoyable under a full moon. The fire was roaring from the full logs we started to feed it, and I decided it was a great time to get a feel for night photography. I continued to fail for an hour or two while we would boil lake water and turn it into instant coffee and smoke cigarettes. The real treat was getting a taste for my first ever MRE. It contained pork sausage with gravy, dehydrated granola with milk and bananas, cheese and crackers, and a toaster pastry. It also came with some clean wipes, waterproof matches, toilet paper (not needed), and two mints. That food could not get in me fast enough, considering what I had been eating, these new and exciting flavors were a treat. We drank 3 pots of coffee that night because why not. This night ended when we finally ran out of wood to burn because we scavenged 100 yards in every direction for wood that would burn easy. I really believe who ever used a camp site after us was shit out of luck, we burnt everything within reach.
A better night turned into a better morning. No snow to dust off the boots, just wake up wrap up camp, fire up a pot of the instant coffee and hit the trail. Not a bad hike back either because we were learning, I started the hike back in only a sweatshirt to account for overworking my body to the point of sweating. Along these hikes we might see a couple of people, we never encountered other hikers who spent a night in the back country though. On our hike out we saw one man pass us, only because we decided to climb a large collection of boulders on the side of this mountain in aspirations of getting to a cave we noticed.
And as expected this kind of off trail exploring must be normal, halfway up those boulders we gave the man a wave as he had to make his way around our packs in the middle of the trail. It turned out to be a little more challenging to get to the cave than we were to believe. We did some climbing maybe 10 feet high before he started to take on a little exposure. I reminded him I would be his only help for a few miles. We returned to the trail hiked a few miles through the pines out back to the car. We were off to our next campsite.
It was just getting good and it ends. Waiting for the next chapter.