hiking to the Washburn Hot Springs
This is a hike that I wanted to do last year but the start of the spur trail that takes you to the Washburn Hot Springs was flooded. If you drive to Inspiration Point, you will see to the left space for parked cars and a trailhead. That is the Glacial Boulder trailhead, which is the entrance to the Seven Mile trailhead. That is the start of the hike.
The attraction of this hike is to explore three areas:
the Washburn Hot Springs
the Washburn Meadows
the start of the ridge that can take you to the top of Mount Washburn
The first three miles of the trail is basically the Seven Mile Hole trail, which is a beautiful hike and popular. You are hiking in a forested area and the park service does a good job of having the trail clear. At I think almost mile 3 you will notice to your left a small opening into a meadow; that is a notice that the spur trail to the left is upcoming in a few yards. Now, once you take the spur trail, lots of fallen trees will block the trail and you need to go around them and hike back to the trail.
Before you reach the Hot Springs, you will walk by a small meadow, this one you hike it along the edge, not the middle. Past it, you will reach a small thermal area, it is just a small pool with a runoff. It is close enough to the trail that you can see it without leaving the trail.
After that small clearing for the thermal area, you are back into the forest and soon enough you will cross Sulphur Creek. Super easy to cross with no need to do anything special.
The forested area eventually ends into another thermal area and that is the Washburn Hot Springs and that is a hot area. It is enough to stay on the trail and see it; the videos below are taken from the trail itself.
Now, there is a social trail that takes you closer and looked safe enough; this is what you see:
This is a cool thermal area to see, although from the satellite image to the left you can see that most of it you will not be able to see.
The pic of that pool is nothing compared to the other larger pool behind it and then the massive thermal area up north of the trail, but that is all you can safely explore in that area.
Next up are the Washburn Meadows (past a campsite) and the cool thing is that you cross them, not just hike along the edges.
This is where I ran on the way back into a group of four people trying to do the same, reach the ridgeline (more on that later).
In this meadow I had to use the scope to find the marker for where to exit the meadow.
You can see on the top left the observatory atop Mount Washburn:
The third thing to do was reach the ridgeline that would eventually take you to Mount Washburn. And that was a brutal one mile going uphill, you can hear that on my voice.
And mile 7 was was the turnaround point, the start of the ridgeline. What a view !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You can see the Washburn Meadows from the start of the ridgeline ………..
And here it comes ………………………. the reason why the park service recommends people travel in groups of four or more and why Yellowstone is NO JOKE.
A FUCKING BIG BEAR
Remember Washburn Meadows ? Well on the way back you exit them and enter a forest and then go back into a lot smaller meadow, about 1/3 of a mile from the Seven Mile Hole trail. I was soooooo tired at that point (the last three miles I was walking so slow).
I exit the forest and I enter that small meadow and immediately notice a large bison (someone told me there are bison there when I was asking about this area the day before) but then it turns away from me and it’s not a big bison, it’s a big bear. He has not seen me and I decide to backtrack into the forest and wait for it to move so I don’t stress it. All my bear encounter are short and this is a chance to spend time watching a bear up close (about 100 yards) for a good period of time.
I spent ten minutes being eaten alive by mosquitoes while looking at the bear grazing. I took the video above and I was unlucky that the pics were getting blurry since the camera was focusing on the brushes in front of the bear.
I had no clue where the wind was blowing from but after ten minutes I figured it out since the bear started smelling the air and it was just a matter of time for him to figure out the source. I still didn’t want it to see me and stress the poor guy so I started moving behind some trees to hide myself and progress towards the trail that leaves the meadow. Well, I kept peeking at the bear so I didn’t loose sight of it and on one of those peak the bear figured it out: he is looking at me, straight at me, eyeballing me with intent.
Now, to me it is interesting how fast the human mind computes since I immediate thought that I needed to reveal myself, the bear had no clue what is in the trees and he could decide to investigate and get closer and that can not happen !!!! (later I realized I was wearing beige and brown, like a deer with a red backpack). I stepped up into the meadow (at this time the bear is 100 yards from me, from the initial 70 yards, so I had been adding distance). I got out of the trees, and the bear gets on his hind legs to take a good look at me (no, there is no pic of that cool thing since one hand just flipped the bear spray safety and the other hand had the hiking pole ready to do something). Unlike the movies, they do that to take a better look. At that point I realized it is a black bear and those you have to fight. This dude on his hind legs looked gigantic !!!
He stood like that for 5 seconds, him raised big and eyeballing me and I am eyeballing him, I am not moving, just yet. He came down on his four legs and at this point we both knew what we are dealing with, so I started walking away slowly, both of us still eyeballing each other. The unnerving part is that from the moment the bear saw me he never stopped eyeballing me with a very serious face, never looked away; I was the only think he was focusing on for those minutes we were facing each other.
I have to walk about 100 yards to exit the meadow and enter the forest. So it took about 5 minutes me walking slowly facing him and him being and asshole facing me. I get in the forest, the bear never moved, mission accomplished. I never yelled at the bear, never made any noise, never talked to him; I took immediate action when he saw me to make sure he know what I was. And no matter what, 100 yards, he was never going to get to me before I would have sprayed his ass.
And with that eventful encounter, this blog ends. This was a great hike, but like someone suggested after I posted pics on Facebook: this would be a great point to point hike if you can continue up the ridge to Mount Washburn and then get down. Obviously, you need a ride for that.