Situation Normal All F***** Up. That’s about as accurate of a description as possible at the beginning of our go at the GYT. A lot of things went wrong for us, and then again a lot turned out right down the road. We started the Greater Yellowstone Traverse off at the parking lot to Woodbine Falls in southern Montana. This is the proposed northern terminus because of its position right on the northern edge of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Looking north from these falls you can feel the more desert like grasslands begin to open up. Roughly 500 trail miles to the south lies another desert, the Great Divide Basin, the southern edge of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and the other end of the GYT.
Caveman (@cavemanontrail) and Jet Fighter (@roastbeefmcweef) in his van conversion minutes before Woodbine Falls comes in to view. We used the van and our friend Beans's Prius to shuttle us from Bozeman, Montana to the trail head.
It’s a bit before noon on the 27th of June when we get dropped off. The ride from our campsite was a few hours long and bit quiet at times. The angst of being cooped up while thinking of hiking was more than enough to fill the silence for us all. The last few songs get downloaded and a text or two get sent before cell service runs out. Then, poof, it’s all gone. It’s obvious that we are all used to not having cell service, but this felt different to me. I actually for once wasn’t sure when I’d get it again. Our next town was Cooke City which I knew didn’t have cell service and the entirety of Yellowstone National Park is a dead zone. That’s almost halfway through the trail before we might pick up cell service in the Tetons.
Water Boy (@tylercosgrove92) getting his start photograph at the Woodbine Falls parking lot.
We have made our starting pictures at the large wooden sign that reads “Woodbine Falls” and I am already bleeding. I had set down my pack for two seconds and it rolled over scrapping my ice axe down my leg, putting a nice gash in it. Perfect. The same sign has repeated warnings about Grizzly Bears and what to do in an encounter, which brings up the fact that I have never spent much time in grizz territory before this. In fact I never hiked with bear spray before! Not only that, but this is my first major hike out west, which offers obstacles very different than those of my home in the Appalachians. This is just one of the many first time situations I would get while on the GYT.
Woodbine Falls, Montana
Cheese Beard (@cheesebeard_hikes) lining up a shot of Woodbine Falls, the proposed northern terminus of the GYT.
An intricate play of falling water and slabs of rock create the stunning multi-level display of power that is Woodbine Falls. The amount of water coming down was impressive to say the least and it is clear that many before us had come to pay homage to its beauty. A well maintained trail leads up a short distance to a close up view on the side of the falls and stops abruptly there. A wall of dense, dark, unforgiving forest seems to mark the boundary between what man can and can’t touch. It’s almost as though no one had really played with that line. Like everyone before had got to that one view point and said “Yep, this is good enough.” No one said “I want to see more. I want the deep dark woods.” We take a step in.
It had been hours of persistent progress up the valley, just inching along at a grueling pace. There was constant risk of rolling ankles, jabbing legs on branches, and limbs swinging back after the person in front of you disappeared in to the brush. If you let someone go just 30 feet in front of you or behind you, you lose sight of them entirely. We manage to get a whopping 4.8 miles in over a 7 hour window and there is a common feeling of disbelief knowing that we worked so hard but got so little in return. It being the first day though we quickly lighten up our attitudes and make camp for the night.
A young grove of pines with a nice mossy ground cover is decided upon to be the resting spot for the night. Cheese Beard, Oil Can, Water Boy, and I all decide to cowboy camp that night under the stars. It is still early in the season out here and the bugs are almost nonexistent and the night is cool and clear. Above us snow covers large areas of the high peaks and the temperature of the water clearly tells us that it is largely snowmelt. It is siltier than normal, and cold. So cold it’s astounding. As I walk over to the stream to get my share of water for the night I had to tip toe around large mounds of fresh grizzly bear scat. This really is the wild.
The crew takes lunch break in the largest clearing we could find on day two.
As we all sit around camp we chat about the future and past memories alike. The weather is brought up in conversation as it always does; as well as snow levels on high mountain passes, what gear has caught our eye lately, and anything else that directly impacts our small world around us. Eventually one of us looks up and states “I have been in wild places but this seems far out there. Further than I’ve felt before.” There is a brief pause in the flow of the conversation. The silence seems to lean in agreement with the statement. Suddenly someone speaks up “Dude, we’re not even 5 miles from the road!” We all get our laugh in and it seems to release the stress of not making our planned miles. Tomorrow we get another beautiful day to make up the miles, so what’s the big rush?
Early starts to the day were not a common theme on our hike of the GYT and this morning was no exception. We finally get packed and moving and are immediately hit with the same problems as the day before. It’s thick. Our legs are bruised, cut, beat up, scraped up. Every plunge through a wall of sticks has the potential of being agonizing from contact with existing wounds on our shins. And then, suddenly, a break opens. I cannot describe the elation I experienced being able to get a full stride out after being stuck in the woods. Alas that was a fleeting feeling as we dive back in.
Oil Can (@oc_boyd) making his way across a frigid stream, a normal occurance during the entirety of the GYT.
It’s the afternoon of the second day. The sun is high and I have the sense that its strength is formidable, but the woods are doing a phenomenal job of harboring the cool air from the morning. Our advance up the ancient glacial made valley has forced us to cross the stream several times now. Every couple of minutes we have to make sure our course is true and that it isn’t leading to cliffs or up the wrong creek.
We have made it just another couple miles so far today and a few worried comments have been made in hush voices. The plan when we had left the trailhead was to carry enough food to get down to Cooke City for our first resupply, some 60 miles south of here. We resupplied on a 10-15 mile per day basis which clearly was not working out. On top of our egregiously slow pace, Oil Can had come down with a stomach sickness almost immediately and constant puke breaks were needed. As one may imagine, the pace is got slower.
There is light at the end of the tunnel. We think. Now our focus has shifted from making it up the valley to going up a mountain. We sat at the base of our assent trying to identify the pass we are headed for. It hasn’t been looking good all day. All around us scree fields hundreds of feet tall at nearly impossible grades top out to the base of vertical, even past vertical, cliff faces. The pass we are looking for was simply picked on a map and the trail drawn right over it in hopes that it is passable. It is unclear whether anyone has really set foot on this pass. It isn’t a place many people want to venture to. It doesn’t make much sense as to why anyone would traverse it. It doesn't even have a name. But now we want a closer look. We understand what it would mean if this “pass” that we chose isn’t in fact passable. It means turning around and spending two days of demoralizing agony retracing our steps.
We found that moving across boulder fields to be marginally quicker than pushing through thickets near the river. The catch being a fairly significant risk of injury.
“What are we going to do about our food situation even if we do make it over the pass? We only have so much food left and were at least a full day behind with miles of shwacking to go before any trail.” another concerned voice chimes in. The comment is perceived by everyone there, but hardly discussed. No one wants to think or talk about the unfortunate reality of having to cut short a part of a thru-hike, so silence speaks for us.
Trevor, a.k.a. Pebbles, who may actually be part mountain goat, takes off up the mountain to get eyes on the pass. Cheese Beard, Water Boy, and I all follow, just at a slower pace. The rest of the crew stays with Oil Can to take a break. Having a sick and dehydrated person climb a mountain pass is asking for a lot of strain on a body and mind, yet he trucks away. As we ascend I try to stay within ear shot of Trevor but that’s virtually impossible as the air is getting thin for my Atlanta lungs. We are climbing to well above 9,000 feet, a new realm of backpacking for me. After several pitches of steep boulder fields leading to false summits I get to a small bowl about 2/3 of the way to the top of the pass. From here we get a view down the whole valley and we can almost see where Woodbine Falls would drop down to the prairie below. Following the ridge all the way up, we get our first full view of the pass, with a little dot on top of it. Somehow Trevor had traversed a snow field and climbed another 300 feet of unbelievably loose scree and boulder fields to top out.
Water Boy surveying a route at the top of our pass.
“IS IT PASSABLE?!” We all call out to him. “ierbvacshbsfvbkb” Is roughly what I heard in response. “WHAT?!” “I THINK SO! COME UP!” And so we start making the final moves. The first obstacle was a boulder field with chunks of rocks the size of Suburbans. That’s not too much of an issue for anyone there, but my inexperience is soon to come in to the picture. A good sized snow field lies at the base of the final climb up and must be crossed. Cheese Beard and Water Boy both take off across it and give me the small pointers I need. “Don’t step on snow near rocks.” Says Cheese Beard, as I am about to step on snow near rocks to get on to the snow. “The sun heats the rocks during the day and they melt the snow around them causing you to post hole through the snow, probably banging the crap out of your legs on the rocks.” “That’s a nice image” I retort as I ever so delicately reach my foot as far in to the snow field as possible before taking my first step on. Success.
From here it’s easy going across, even for me. I understood this was an easy snow field but we came prepared for much worse scenarios. I personally carried a CAMP Corsa ice axe, perfect for occasional snow and glacier traverses with the long, straight handle that can act as a trekking pole in addition to being a lifesaving self-arrest device, and crampons for better traction on the frequently thawed and refrozen ice fields that lay ahead.
After an overly dramatic yet successful jump from snow to rock we begin our ascent. The pile of dismembered mountain before us is less than ideal for traversing. A couple hundred feet tall and loose enough that a heavy rain can drastically change its layout means that we can’t single file our way up but must climb roughly shoulder to shoulder. Take a step up 8 inches, slide down 3 inches. Repeat.
Every couple of seconds one of us announces unenthusiastically “Rock” as a large piece of jagged rock tumbles down moving ever faster towards the snowfield now hundreds of feet below. Right before the summit we hit a bottle neck and have to single file it, taking turns. First Cheese Beard, then Water Boy, and finally myself. We topped out and after 2 very long and very strenuous days of shwacking in remote territory, we got to where we had hoped to be by this time the first day.
Searching for the best sites on the "gentle" side of the pass (seen in the background)
It is now almost 5:30 pm but we haven’t even noticed the time. The sun is no longer in the direct sunlight phase but it is still many hours from setting. The lighting is exceptional through the clouds and I sense the presence of golden hour coming around the corner. The wind is blowing at a pleasant pace and its soft swooshing sound muffles the sounds of lungs desperately trying to get oxygen and my heart exploding through my ear drum. We are standing at 10,400 feet above sea level and we’re paying the price. Between our short and exhausted breaths it has come to a consensus that we would offer this section to be an optional extension of the GYT but it was far too much to ask of everyone in the future.
Behind us the valley opens up in both directions and over the other side of the valley the mountains go on in to the distance past the horizon. Twin Peak dominates the skyline in a most inspirational way. As we all stare at the view, watching cloud’s shadows play on the land, Cheese Beard tells us that he had looked up Twin Peak and couldn’t find any reports of its ascent. As far as we knew we were looking at a virgin mountain, one whose face had never been intruded upon by man. The other side of the ridge gave us a view of our uncertain future. The skyline was made up of mostly Granite Peak, the highest point in Montana, and flanking it to the left the formidable Froze to Death Plateau at 12,000 feet. Froze to Death Plateau was supposed to be what we were climbing today but instead we admired it slack-jawed and weary from 20 miles away. Between us laid another 10 miles of trailess, steep, and wooded terrain with many streams, lakes, and bogs. But directly below us, maybe 500 feet down, was a flat, grassy spot next to a high alpine lake we could finally rest in for the night.
I let out an exhausted smile at the end of day two. Legs in tatters but I am certain it was worth it. Credit to @cheesebeard_hikes