Yellowstone
By Alison Young with help from my fellow trippers
On a trip like Yellowstone, it’s hard to write an article to make people understand what an experience we’ve ail had, what things we’ve learned as a group, and more importantly, what we have learned as individuals. We have accomplished many things as a group. We overcame discouragement, weariness, and our petty differences. As individuals, we expanded our horizons and strengthened ourselves, by achieving what at first seemed impossible, a fifty mile hike in seven days.
Our journey began well before school even started. In early August, Doug sent out a letter explaining that there was going to be a trip to Yellowstone National Park leaving September 10th. Can you believe it… during the first week of school? We would have four days as a group to prepare for the trip.
It was September 6th. School had started, and so had preparations for the trip. We were having a lot of troubles getting a group together. Kids kept dropping off of the trip, and skipping meetings. By the 8th, we had our final group and only two days together to prepare for it.
The trip began at 6:00 a.m. , September 10th. Patty “Big-b” Heien, Marna Sutphen, Alan June, Mike “Smiley” Ennis, Phil Lynott, Lisa “Sniffles” Kopecky, graduate Josh “Stimpy” Stinson, Doug Berg, myself, and eventually Mason “Pokey” Davey, were all gathered at Perkins. We loaded our stuff and ourselves into the van and got on our way.
We drove ail day, making a brief stop in South Dakota for lunch. It was here that we encountered a freak grasshopper. He was much larger then your average insect, and hopped like he had a little too much to drink. Phil wanted to bring him with, but we told him no. We drove on until we reached the South Dakota/ Wyoming border. We stopped here for dinner, then continued to press on. We drove late into the night, and we stopped when Doug could no longer distinguish the road from the shoulder. Doug pulled into a camp ground where we found a nice parking spot. He snuggled up behind the wheel, failing
quickly to sleep. Mason, Alan, Josh and Mike crashed outside.
A couple of hours later we were on the road again, in search of a place to eat breakfast. We ended up stopping at “Granny’s Cafe” in Cody, Wyoming. It was here that we encountered our second freak of the trip. He was a young guy around our age who insisted on babbling mindlessly at us throughout breakfast. We also got the privilege of seeing his “Raiden: The Thunder God” tattoo.
Our next stop was Yellowstone National Park. The drive through the park was beautiful After two days in the van we were finally at Yellowstone, and it was beautiful there, too. Our first campsite at Yellowstone was going to be home for the next three days before the hike. The campground was crowded but beautiful just the same. Our site was on a smail grassy flat, with lodgepole Pines hovering over us. After we set up camp, we headed for the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. The canyon wails were splashed with brilliant yellow and orange tones. The upper and lower falls crashed down the rock, filtering into the Yellowstone River.
Road construction was underway at Yellowstone. The machinery just didn’t fit in with the scenery there. It was going to be yet another hang up on this trip. The road we needed to take to the trailhead was going to be closed from 10 am to 6pm. This was going to make it difficult for all of us to get to the trail- head. Our only other hope of having everything run smoothly was if Mini-School graduates Lola Ulvog and Adrian Dolentz dropped in on us. They were on their way to Oregon. Doug had invited them to stop and had given them directions to the site. (We all prayed that they would stop by.)
Once again, Mini-Schoolers save the day! That night as we all sat lazy around the campfire persuading Mara, our log lady, to throw another log on the fire, a truck pulled up near our site, and it was at least midnight by now so we couldn’t figure out who it could be. Then we saw it…the U-haul. It was Lola and Adrian! We ail jumped up to greet them. The rest of the night we listened to Adrian and Lola tell of their journey to Yellowstone and to us.
“Hey, Adrian! You made it here!” Doug’s voice boomed through the cold air in the tent. I opened my eyes. Doug was peering through the tent window. “You gonna drive shuttle for us to the trailhead?” It was 7 in the morning and Doug was asking Adrian a question. Anyone who knows Adrian knows you don’t ask her anything in the morning. Adrian mumbied her classic “Shut up old man !” and then rolled over to get back to her deep slumber.
When I got up to eat breakfast I noticed everyone was snapping pictures. There was a buffalo on our site. Buffalo are massive animals and it’s rather startling to have one that close to you. Doug spent most of the morning harassing Lola and Adrian about shuttling the van. Eventually they succumbed to Doug’s wishes.
Today we were going to Old Faithful. We all stuffed into the van like one happy unshowered family. Once we were at Old Faithful we ail went our separate ways, Most of us stopping at the ice cream shop. Lola was particularly excited by this. I went to check out the thermal activity with Lisa, Mike and Phil. I felt as though I was walking on some foreign planet. We had to walk on a wooden walkway around the thermal activity. Everything was amazing along with the smell of rotten eggs that the geysers let off. Watching Old Faithful erupt was like watching a freak show of nature. Later that day after more exploring we all met up at the van. We drove to the nearest ranger station where we watched a informational video on hiking in the backcountry.
September 13, our last day in civilization – no running water no toilets and no shelter other than our tents. We hiked to Riddle lake today to help us prepare for the days ahead. The hike was 5 miles round trip. Marna and Phil brought their fishing poles. Phil made a few catches but Mama had no such luck. Doug assigned us to be a certain part of life’s chain (Example- tree, wolf, fish etc..) We had to explain how we related to the rest of the group. After all that learning we ate lunch then headed back to camp where lazy Adrian and Lola were waiting for us.
We spent most of the rest of daylight preparing for the days ahead of us. As we sat around the campfire that night our conversation was interrupted by a ranger flashing his mag light in our eyes. Fear struck me, were we being too loud? Was he gonna wake Doug up? I felt the end coming near. “Hey have you kids seen a buffalo around here?” asked the ranger. The fear drained from my body, but now I was rather confused. “No.” we all replied simultaneously. He proceeded to tell us a story about how a buffalo at a nearby site had decided to make camp by the door of one of our fellow campers tents. They had called the ranger to remove him. The ranger had thrown a few tocks at the buffalo sending him off in the direction of our site. He told us not to be alarmed if we did see the buffalo wandering through our site and went on his way. Fortunately the buffalo chose not to visit us. We spent the rest of the night listening to a nearby pack of coyotes howling at what was probably a fresh kill. It was rather eerie at first, but the more we listened the more it became reality that we weren’t in
the cities anymore.
We awoke early this particular morning. We were leaving on our hike, and had much to do in order to prepare. We broke camp then proceeded to pack our backpacks. We had a few “my pack is heavier then yours” disagreements, but otherwise the morning ran extremely well. We had a good group and we were all starting to realize it.
Once we reached the trailhead we had to say a tearful goodbye to our Mini-School friends Adrian and Lola. (You see they were too weak to take such a stressful hike!) Just kidding, Kind of.
! put my pack on and started down what felt like the trail to heil. 1 couldn’t believe I had paid to carry something as heavy as my pack for seven days. My regrets quickly disappeared as I reached camp that night. Our site was absolutely the most beautiful! place I had ever seen (so far). You had to walk along the shore of Yellowstone lake to reach the site. Our site was right on the shore; the lake was surrounded by mountains. It was still relatively early when we arrived at camp so we ail had a little free time before we needed to set camp. I lay on the shore with the sun beating down on my sore body and began to realize how lucky I was to be here. The sound of silence echoed in my ears – no cars, no phones and no math teachers yelling at me. It was great.
We awoke the next morning still feeling the day before. We managed to break camp, eat breakfast, and get on our merry little ways all in very good time. Yet again with no arguments and a lot of compromise. I was extremely happy and comfortable with the group we had.
“Come on guys you gotta get up now.” declared Josh. Josh was holding up the rear of the hike other wise known as Lisa and I. I thought I was going to die. The day seemed as though it was never ending. 1 hadn’t seen any of the rest of the group since lunch, and it was well into the after noon by now. I got up from my comfy seat on a log and proceeded to count my steps as I went. I was starting to feel violent. Every time I heard Josh say we were almost there I thought of another way I could kill him. These thoughts kept me occupied for another couple miles. Then came the self pity. My eyes filled with tears a few times. I couldn’t believe Doug was doing this to me (You always have to blame it on someone else you know.). I was about to give up all hope, then I saw him..It was Doug – I knew I must be close. When he approached us he had a smile on his face and not a bit of sweat on his body. This angered me slightly but I just smiled. He told us we weren’t much farther from camp and that we had once again a beautiful site. Lisa started to cry out of joy for seeing Doug and the agony of continuing on. She didn’t stop till we reached camp 2 and 1/2 miles later – Doug’s idea of a little ways away. Lisa and I stopped not too far from camp to get fresh water. We hadn’t had good water for the last couple hours. All the streams we had passed by had high amounts of sulpher in them giving the water a sour rotten taste. Alan and Mason came running down from camp to greet us. Alan offered to take my pack the rest of the way for me. An offer which seemed too good to pass up but I had to. There was no way after all I had been through that day that I wasn’t going to finish the hike with my own pack on my back. There was a steep incline you had to climb to get to the site. But I did it! Everyone congratulated me when I got to the top. I had never felt so proud of myself before.
After a brief rest everybody else and I set up camp and did the necessary camp chores – getting water and wood most importantly. Once you have your pack off you feel light on your feet, so chores don’t seem so awful. We all ran around and played in the woods for the rest of the daylight. Our sight was on a bluff over looking Beaver Dam Creek. Our view was breathtaking. I felt at total peace with myself there. We ail stayed up late that night because the next day was a lay over day.
I woke up this morning feeling like a large piece of dirt. We were all so dirty. Our faces were covered with ashes from the fire, our fingernails were packed with dirt and other goodies. So I decided to clean up in the creek below. It felt so good to be clean but I didn’t stay that way for much longer then a hour. Mason, Josh, Mama, Alan and Doug ail went for a day hike up an unnamed peak. There was no designated trail on the peak so you just had to make your own trail. All of them are strong hikers so it only took them an hour and a half to reach the top. Meanwhile the rest of us down below were doing chores when we heard Patty yell “They made it to the top!” I turned just in time to see the flash of light. They had Phil’s mirror on top with them and were flashing us to let us know they had made it.
Doug passed his binoculars around while they were up top the mountain. With the binoculars the view was splendid and they were able to observe a moose Standing in a pond below and a grizzly catching his lunch in the Yellowstone river and a few bison grazing in the fields. At dinner time Doug entertained himself by singing a song to Mason that went something like “you so ugly”. Mason snapped back with his own musical retort. We ail went to bed fairly early tonight (Before 2 o’ clock). We knew we had another tong grueling day ahead of us.
We got up at 6 and were on the trail by 9. We hiked along for about two miles where we stopped to regroup. We were going to be crossing the Yellowstone River soon and we wanted to do it as a group. Crossing the river was an experience. The Current was strong and the water was cold. We ail had our shoes on and were ready to go again when Doug yelled to us that we weren’t done yet. We were on a sand bar and we didn’t even realize it. Off with our shoes again. Today’s hike was 16 miles long so we had to hike hard. We crossed at least four steams today which takes more time then you would think. At one point on the trail the whole group minus Doug met up. We weren’t sure which way to go on the trail. We figured it out, but took a long time in doing so. It was getting late and we still had a good five miles to go. We stayed as a group most of the rest of the hike, eventually breaking into that night’s dessert of Snicker bars for energy. We soon met up with Doug and explained what took so long. We made a decision to stop at the next site we saw because we were running out of daylight. We weren’t able to finish that day’s designated hike, so there would be extra miles the next day.
We all ate dinner and listened to Doug tell stories about former Mini-School trips. I crashed right after dinner.
I woke up the next morning worn out and very sore. Today’s hike seemed extra long but I enjoyed the scenery around me. There were a lot of steams and marsh crossings again today. It was dribbling rain randomly through out the day. Hiking in rain gear is not comfortable. When I reached camp you could see the storm heading for us in the sky. Thunder boomed loudly rushing us to set camp and cover our supplies with the tarp. Just as we all took our last bites of dinner rain hit, hard. It died off pretty fast but continued to sprinkle throughout the night. We encountered a few animals at this site. Mama visited
with a coyote after the first batch of rain. I encountered two moose and some deer on the trail. It’s wonderful to see animals in their natural setting and not in a cage.
Layover day! Doug, Mike, Phil, Josh and Alan hiked Mt Sheridan. They enjoyed the playing in the snow up top, but were quickly chased back down by hail.
All of our clothes were soaked and dirty but we only had one more day until we reached the comfort of the van.
We all woke up early on our own this morning. We knew we weren’t far from showers and toilets and phones. We came across hot springs on the trail and we ail stopped to soak our tired feet. We had to climb a steep hill about 1 mile long today. It was hard but knowing we would be reaching the end soon we all hiked well today. I think I ran the last mile of the hike. When I saw the van I felt pure joy! The hike was over! We had done it – a 50 mile hike in seven days!
My first shower in 9 days was wonderful. I had never felt so good in my life. The weather bulletin at our campground said it could be down to 5 below tonight and possibilities of snow flurries.
We woke up at 6 o’ clock this morning to leave for home. We were home before I knew it. But this trip will always be with me. I learned a lot of things about myself and the group on this trip. I couldn’t have asked for a more understanding and fun group. You know how I said earlier in the article how ! couldn’t believe Doug was doing this to me. Now Il can. I want to thank Doug for taking the time out to show us how much there is out there and how much there is in ourselves. Thank you.