Posts tagged #Mountains

When we Hiked through Lamar Valley - Summertime in Yellowstone National Park

Adventure Tuesday

Adventures in Yellowstone

May 25-27th 2014

We had just managed to snag the last available campsite outside Gardiner and went to bed under a clear sky in the Rocky Mountains. The next morning I woke up by a strange noise, something was eating outside the tent, and it brought back memories from a different morning in Alaska when the same thing had happened. As I opened up the tent I was greeted by a bunch of elk. The following years I learned that this area, just up the hill from Gardiner is a prime spot for elk. Other than the noise from the elk it was very quiet around camp. People had been up partying into the wee hours last night, but we had major plans this morning and went to bed early. I was as excited I could possible be as I glanced over Yellowstone National Park while I had my coffee. I could not believe that I finally would get to hike in the mountains in Yellowstone. We were going to have a long day ahead of us, but first we had to get to the park and reserve a backcountry camping spot! These are first come first serve so we didn’t want to risk loosing our plan.

Up until this trip I’d only seen Yellowstone in a blanket of deep snow so I was stoked to finally get to see this beauty dressed in green. It was late May and even though spring is on the way in many places in the US at this point it can be slower here because of the high elevation.

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We’d been checking a couple of different short routes we could do, but after having to remove our top choice due to a late spring and too much water (that hike had a stream crossing without a bridge) we dialed in on a fairly decent hike into the Lamar Valley. If you’ve followed my blog for a while you have probably seen Lamar Valley, a huge valley blanketed in snow in the wintertime where you can spot wolf and bison. There are plenty of bison in this area in the summertime too, something we would soon find out.

I usually don’t take as many pictures during the actual hike, it would take forever to reach our main destination if I did. And especially when we are hiking in a new area you never quite know how long it will take. Sometimes I wish we had more time to stop and take more photos. This time i managed to take a couple of photos right before our bison incident…

W basically grew up with Yellowstone in his backyard and both of us had been living in Alaska for a few years when we embarked on this hike. In the deep forests of Montana and Alaska you are taught to make noise and spaek loudly, so that you do not accidentally surprise a bear. So we did what we have always done, talking loudly, clapping our hands until we rounded this tiny little hill and were greeted by a loud humpf. Before we knew it a huge bison that had been laying down, resting, turned his head towards us started to get up. We slowly walked away but somehow we were now inside a whole herd of bison. I don’t know how we managed to get into this situation. But, to clarify, we felt as if we were inside a herd of bison, but herds a very spread out. We were definitely too close to be comfortable. I closed my eyes and wished that I could stick my head in the ground. In the same manner as we somehow had gotten us into this situation we managed to get out of it. I always view bison as somewhat stupid creatures, that in combination with the fact that they are very large makes them extremely dangerous.

We continued our hike, walking through the valley and previously burned forest. We met a couple of other hikers and they had just been to the campspot we were going to. They told us, just like the previous group had told them, that a large grizzly walks by the camp up on the hill at about 5pm every night.

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We continued walking, through brush and over logs. We took a lunchbreak in the shadow of an old Lodgepole Pine. We checked the map again to see how much farther we had to walk. We checked the GPS and realized we had already passed the campsite and could not understand how that was even possible. We started walking back, probably for a good 30 minutes until both of us were doubting what we had seen on the GPS. It turned out that there was an older campsite on the map in the GPS. We realized that once we took up the paper map and crossed checked. So we started walking back, into the valley again, walking the same path for the third time this day. During this time we also started seeing some lone bisons along the trail. Some of them were hanging out in the forest. I had up until now only viewed bison as creatures that love hanging out in large open spaces, but apparently that is not true. So now we had to be on our toes about bison in the forest too. We crossed small creeks and stepped over large boulders and logs. In some areas the logs looked like pickup sticks, very large pickup sticks.

“A few minutes later W whispers
-There it is, there’s the bear “

We finally arrived and were sitting down at our home for the night. It was beautiful. The mountains in front of us and two hillsides on either side of us. We were also right next to the Lamar River which was raging at this time. i looked at my watch, it was approaching 5pm. I told W that it would have been nice to know on what hillside the other campers saw the bear, on the hillside by us or on the other side of Lamar River. Not more than a few minutes later W whispers - There it is, there’s the bear.

I immediately flew up with one hand on the bear spray and whispering in a frantic tone WHERE WHERE?? But then I realized that the bear actually was pretty far away from us. And she, or he, must have known about our presence. The bear continued along the hillside and you could see that it was on a mission. It payed zero interest to us, as it continued forward before it disappeared behind a hill.

After the bear viewing it was finally time for some food. W, as always, cooks the food and I took care of the fire, and water situation. If there is one good thing that I learned during my time studying in Alaska it is to find springs. Spring water you don’t need to filter, it is mostly clean and ice cold. And since we were on a hillside I quickly found some very active springs. We were watching the mountains and talking about this and that before we started to pack up the food and realized we’d forgotten the rope.When you are backcountry camping in Yellowstone (and many other National Parks in the US, especially in the Rocky Mountains) you have to hang your food up, to prevent bears from getting it. We decided to use one of the tent strings that was strong enough for the food. But we had wanted to hang our packs and clothes up too. Instead we placed them by the food storage area. We changed clothes and put the clothes we used for cooking into the backpacks and then we also put a plastic bag on top of the backapacks. We’d already got our tent set up far away from the food storage area.

Before we knew it we were watching the sunset in the mountains and soon after we went to bed. But what a night. We kept hearing noises all night, it was hard to tease apart if it was the river we heard, the trees or worse a bison or a bear walking around. At one point we herd a loud thump. I layed dead still and whispered did you hear that. W was also wide awake, and he had heard it too. W was convinced that a bear had gotten to our food, I kept thinking that a bison was walking around our campsite and was heading towards our tent. And that is how most of the night continued. At some point we must have fallen asleep completely though because in the morning we woke up by male elk calling for a couple of females. After some well needed coffee and breakfast we were finally ready to hit the trail again.

We packed up and started the hike back. Both of us were already feeling a bit stressed ove the first part of the hike which included all these large herds of bison. We met some new campers who were heading out to the campsite we just left. We told them about the bear and also asked them about the bison. They told us there were many bison covering the whole trail and made it hard to pass. Great. So once we approached that area we started to walk up up and up the hill. In this way we would be able to see where the bison were and maneuver in that way. We trecked through the sage brush that tore our legs up, cause we were of course wearing shorts. Once up the hill we didn’t see a single bison down below.

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Do you want to read more posts about Yellowstone National Park? Click the link below:

The Ultimate Roadtrip pt.5

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It’s like Alaska on Steroids

DAY 5, 05/25/16: Saskatoon Island Provincial Park to Pocahontas Campground

Before I moved to Alaska a Swedish friend who lives there told me that Alaska is like Northern Sweden on Steroids. Well here we were, our fifth day of driving, and I could never have imagined that the views would get even better than what they had been. At one point I looked out the window and told W, I am saturated, saturated of mountains. I said, I can’t take it any longer as I put down the camera on my lap and just stared at all these magnificent views. If Alaska is like northern Sweden on steroids, Western Canada is like Alaska on Steroids. These two coming days we were going to drive fairly long stretches, but we also wanted to explore the national parks a little bit.

We were on the road before 8 am and I think we started to get tired by now. Day five, on our roadtrip. Last time we showered was at Liard Hotsprings, but that didn’t bother us as much as sitting still in a car. Luckily we were on our way to two incredible national parks in Canada, Jasper and Banff. Our drive was going to be short today (well, everything is relative right?), because we were finally gonna stretch our legs and conquer a mountain! After about 4 hrs of driving through a wide open landscape that slowly took us closer and closer to the mountains we were now entering Jasper National Park. As you enter Jasper the road immediately takes you into the mountains, and the views are just out of this world. I don’t know of any other place like Jasper and Banff. When you cross the Athabascan river, driving south on the Yellowhead Highway the views are just out of this world. I know I keep using the same adjectives, spectacular, incredible, out of this world, but if you have ever been here I am sure you would have a hard time not to overuse all of these describing words too.

Driving through Maligne Canyon

The views of deep forest, lakes and mountains could be seen in all four directions. It was hard to know where to look at times, and I wanted to stop at every pullout, which we of course did not do. We would probably still be there if I could have gotten it my way. But, we were finally going to hike, so I was super excited about that. We drove towards Maligne Lake because that is where the trail head to Bald Hills is located. We passed the Medicine Lake and drove along fire scarred forests and majestic mountains. Bald Hills summit is a 13.2 km out and back hike, that offers spectacular views. Again the weather was sunny now, but there were clouds on the horizon. I really do not know how we always manage to pick a hike where we see absolutely no other people.

Bald Hills Summit Trail

This trail first takes you through the deep forest, crossing streams and slowly going up in elevation. When you are so far up in elevation that mountains and lakes start appear through the gaps between the large trees that surrounds you. Eventually you break out from the forest and step out into the alpine vegetation, because now you are more than 2,000 meters above sea level.

Up above the treeline

Eventually we broke through the treeline and ended up in a field of snow. It was indeed late May, which in the mountains still mean snow. And the mountains, those mountains wherever you turned your eyes. The last part of the trail is fairly steep, and we were walking through some very deep snow. From the top of the Bald Hills summit you have 360 degree panorama views of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. From the top you can also see Maligne lake, the lake we could spot through the trees earlier. Of course with the rain constantly haunting us we managed to see a wonderful full rainbow over the mountains.

Of course we had to take a few selfies in the mountains too! On the way down we played around in the snow a bit until we reach the trees and the forest again. We had such a good luck with the weather, but as always the dark clouds were coming towards us, and we got in a hurry to get off the mountains before the rain came.

When we were done with the hike we went and got a camping spot. We didn’t want to drive too far after the hike so we had picked out a campground fairly close to the hiking trail, Pocahontas Campground. We had been worried about finding a spot, since it seemed like there were so many tourists around, well on the road, and not on the hike of course. But when we finally got to the campground, it was completely empty, of course. I immediately realized that we had reach civilization when I saw the soda vending machine by the bathrooms at the campground.

Day 5 trip Details - Gas, Camping, and gas mileage:

  • Canada: Shell Canada Grande Praire AB. 18.5 miles from Saskatoon Island Provincial Park. Mileage 25 miles/gallon

  • Canada: Petro Canada Jasper AB. 250.8. Mileage 24.49 miles/gallon

  • Total driving on day 5, about 269.3+ 29.9 miles from gas station to Pocahontas Campground (299.2).

  • The grand total of the whole trip: 1702.3 miles

  • Campground: Pocahontas Campground, AB

You'll Bleed to Death Before We would Ever Get Back

Flashback Friday

Fieldwork in Nome, Alaska

July 2018

I was lucky enough to help out with some fieldwork in Alaska again, and what a whirlwind the days before that was. We pretty much packed up all of our belongings and put them in a big container, to be shipped to NYC (well Actually, New Jersey) at a later date. We scrubbed and cleaned our place from top to bottom. Not that it was super dirty, but that is how I am, I want to leave it all clean. It was also because our friends were going to move in after us. Luckily we arrived in NYC and Manhattan, East Harlem on one of the hottest weekend, we reached 104F or so….. First, we struggled to find parking. After that we made a lot of trips back and forth to the car, until we finally were done. The apartment wasn’t that cool either, but it had AC’s, which we quickly turned on as we tried to survive this heatwave. As we sat down in the living room with a beer that evening I saw a mouse in our house. Two days later I was watching mountains and glaciers from an airplane window on my way back to Alaska and this time Nome, where the temperature was looming around 50F. It did reach 70F just in time for my birthday.

Summers in Alaska are almost like a fairytale. The endless nights will keep you up longer than you should, but come morning you still have enough energy to last through the day, and night again, and again and again. We spent an hour or so in the truck every morning to get out to the field site. Away from the ocean and the small town, towards the mountains and the wilderness, and the end of the road. The only way to get to Nome in the summertime is by plane, or boat I suppose. In the wintertime you can mush, snow mobile, ski, walk or bike as well. It’s strange to think about, a place in the wilderness isolated from the rest of the world. And out there in the mountains you are really isolated from the world. It makes it even more important to think about safety. If you hurt yourself out here, breaking a leg or god forbid cut yourself in the thigh you are in trouble. Almost everyone I know cary a pocket knife, or knife of some sort when they are out in the field. You need to to cut zip ties, or anything else you probably would never have thought of before. But it is important to know where and on what surface you are cutting something. It almost comes natural to place things in your lap and fix them, but if you slip with your knife on your thigh you’ll bleed to death before you could ever get back to cell service and the hospital out here. There is a reason why it’s a really good idea to have the wilderness first responder class in your backpack. I do not have that, but I have taken a couple of short classes about general safety in the field. Those are far from the deep knowledge you will get from the NOLS class though. Have you taken any safety classes focused on adventures in the wilderness? I am going to try to take one of those classes next time the opportunity comes up.