Hiking Season is starting again

I had a big surprise. My Google personal search list had NoRooomForDoubt.com as one on my recommended readings. How cool is that!

Off to Canyon to do some hiking. Well still a lot of snow.

Checked out the warning about bears. I have two cans of bear spray and my bear bells on. Also decide to play some Audible and music from my phone to add some extra sound.

Well the path turned out to be all snow covered.

This tree is a visual representation of how I feel inside sometimes.

I found the great Toad King. He was too stoic to speak with me.

The views were great.

Didn’t see the bear but found evidence. Some tracks were clear in the snow. Also found evidence of does a bear s…. in the woods, but you don’t need to see that.

Did a lot of post hole walking so I gave up and turned around. Will have to complete this hike another time.

National Trails Day

For National Trails Day I hiked the south rim of the canyon. This is referred to as the grand canyon of Yellowstone.

The colors in the canyon were very cool looking. It reminded me of ice cream.

A majestic shot with the mountains in the background.

You could hear the water roaring.

Well I am leaving tourist land and going on a back country trail. The NPS want you to understand that you are now on your own.

I met a lady on the trail that told be she heard my bear bells and got really scared. She said that she was connecting the bear bell to bears and she though one was coming toward her. She then realized that the bell was to deter the bears, not that the bears had bells on. Good thing she didn’t use the bear spray on me.

Funny side story. A coworker was telling me that a tourist sprayed his kids with the bear spray because he thought it was a repellent like bug spray. Those kids are going to have trust issues for a long time.

The trail guide was correct in saying sudden and steep drops were near the trail and that small children should be watched at all times.

I didn’t know the Ricola horn was missing, but I found it pinned under a log in Yellowstone.

 

Is that a mushroom or an ear? I don’t think I want to know. Moving along….

The colors in the water were very neat. Almost fell in crossing this spot.

If you get vertigo from heights you should skip the next few pictures.

It was amazing being at this spot. This was the furthest point of my hike and while I started the trail with a couple of hundred fellow hikers. I was all alone at this point in the hike.

I really wanted to climb out onto that middle section of rock.

Well this could be a fun slide to do once. Well the fun would stop abruptly with that sudden stop at the bottom.

The terrain changed a lot on this hike.

This was a little freaky.

Bubble bubble toil and trouble.

I had a total of over 6 miles of hiking and I only saw two trail markers the entire time. As Janet said about the cross country skiing, it does seem like the NPS is trying to get you lost in the woods.

Do you feel like you have hiked 6 miles though this blog post?

Back at the house my neighbor had a fire pit going. We sat by the fire and made s’mores while listening to howling coyotes.

It was a good day.

Met the legend Steve Fuller

Back out in the park doing work. I met the legend Steve Fuller. He is the winter keeper at Canyon and has been since 1973.

You can read or watch more about Steve here:

http://mountainjournal.org/twilight-of-the-yellowstone-winterkeeper

Going out to Canyon

Felt like I was on the set of Mad Men.

Cool image behind the registration desk.

Hey look the snow is still here.

Some snow fell off the roof and the force of it pushed a locked door in and pushed snow into the room. Scary to think of the force of just a mini-avalanche.

Saw this fox on the ride home. Very cool looking.