hiking the Blacktail Deer Creek trail in Yellowstone
This was a very pleasant surprise. I think many people will hike Rescue Creek and not this one. All I saw were backpackers on this hike.
This is an in and out hike that takes you to the shores on the Yellowstone River.
You start the hike at the parking area next to the Blacktail Ponds, where you will probably see ducks and bison ……….. but today was my lucky day and 1/4 of mile into the hike (just past the ponds), I ran into a large amount of wolf tracks. Dozens and dozens of tracks from big boys. They lasted for half a mile until I ran into some girls coming back from a backpack trip where they were starting to see them. Unfortunately for the people coming behind me, a caravan of people on horseback was about to enter the trail so those tracks were about to disappear.
heavily edited pic of one of the ponds, it was quite misty early in the day.
Once past the ponds the are some areas fenced in, not sure why. Once you past them going up then you reach a plateau with wide views of the valley, which I love.
This area is where you can take a left to continue on the Rescue Creek trail. If you continue you will start going down and hike along a nice creek. The colors in fall are amazing:
Now the trail narrows and eventually reach a very nice suspension bridge over the Yellowstone river. There are campsite on both sides of the river. I thought I took video of this, but I can’t find it:
The trail divides going either up river or down river. I decided to go down river since there is a nice lake I wanted to visit. At the intersection I ran into a crime scene :)
So I went left and quickly you arrive at this lake that on the topo map you can see that it is next to the river. The slope to the bank was steep but I found a social trail that took me close to it. Quite a few ducks frolicking on the lake.
From then on, you go up and down until you reach a stable area and then you are hiking next to the river.
There is plenty openings to see the river, so the trail was well planned. But ………….. remember the floods ? Take a look at the erosion that I noticed on the other side of the river:
At around this area I decided to turn around and then all hell broke loose ………………… I am very attuned to noises and what they mean so the first time I hear something it will startle me but then I catalog the source and no more surprises.
Ok, I started hearing this buzzing sound that did not register and I always immediately stop to try to recognize the source. The fact that I stopped saved me a lot, A LOT of pain. The buzzing sound became a rattle sound and as you can see below, this is what was blocking the trail: the only venomous snake in the park: the prairie rattlesnake. Bonus: I was hiking opposite rattlesnake butte.
So based on my research later, this guy would not have killed me, but a bite would have been extremely painful and at that point I was six miles from the trailhead, about 3 hours walking in pain, plus 30 minutes to drive to the ranger station for medical attention. Only 4 (or 3) people have ever been bitten by these critters in the history of the park, so I almost became famous.
Some more pics of the way back ……………….
And this time i was sunny at the ponds:
Except the snake, this has become one of my favorite hikes in Yellowstone. It has open space, hiking next to a large creek, lots of bones, suspension bridge over the Yellowstone river, hiking along the river. I highly recommend this hike, knowing that you need to pay attention in the area next to the river, you don’t want to spook the rattlesnakes.