Howard Eaton trail (Fishing Bridge) in YellowstoneNP
The Howard Eaton trail is a point to point trail of about 16 miles that goes from Fishing Bridge to Canyon. It is seldom hiked and I have no idea why, because the views of the Yellowstone River and Hayden Valley have no equal.
Since I hike solo, last time I hiked it from Canyon to the mid point and back. This time I hiked it from Fishing Bridge. The trail starts behind the little store’s parking lot, just keep going following a dirt road which you will follow for about half a mile.
You start at the dirt road and you will notice a social trail on the left side of the road that will then take you into a forested area that then opens into some open meadows. You will get peeks at the river at the start and then enter the forest after that.
Hiking in July was suicide for two reasons: (1) the mosquitos were out in full force and (2) trail maintenance hasn’t cleared the trail from fallen trees. From about mile 1 to 3 I was going over fallen trees and when I slowed down, the mosquitos would feast on me (bug repellent or not).
This section will focus on two areas: Le Hardys rapids and a couple of picnic areas on the opposite side of the river shore.
There is a spur trail that takes you to a lookout for the Le Hardys rapids; just continue to return to the trail.
You then go back into the forest and here I started running into bear poop, a lot of it !!!! In the video below I already ran into two of them, past it I ran into more which put me on full alert since I was alone on the trail. I saw four guys hike in front of me but I didn’t see at all until I decided to turn around later and saw them at a distance taking a rest.
That is the dilemma of enjoying a seldom hiked trail, sure the trail will not have traffic of noisy people but it is you and whichever critters are there. It is very important to look for tracks on the trail itself and look around for signs and noises. In a forested area it makes sense to make noise since you can literally run into a bear all of a sudden.
Then the area finally opens up ……… There are rest areas on the other side of the river and you can see people fishing on the river. That gives you a perspective that the river is not deep.
I decided to use the panorama feature of my camera for once and I got this one (sorry for not being leveled); the problem is that the feature forces you to take a longer panorama that you would like. Below is a closer pic of that small island.
And this is what I love about this trail after suffering the mosquitos and fallen trees in the first three miles, beautiful views of the Yellowstone river and large meadows. Later in the year I would hike those meadows all the way to the river but in July that area is just wetlands.
Remember the bear poop ? Oh well, I ran into its probable lunch from last month. This looked like this year’s kill since it had a little meat left for crows (barely). I looked all around but this was completely consumed from the point of view of a bear so there was no danger of this being a carcass being guarded by a bear.
At mile seven and a half I found a large rock and sat down to admire the view. I saw those four guys I saw at the trailhead at about 200 yards resting too. It looked that they were going to do the whole trail all the way to Canyon.
I am a sucker for weird looking trees with a nice background.
When dry, you can explore all you want and get to the river. Just be aware that you can run into carcasses so keep your nose clear. I did run into another carcass and it looked fresh until I used my scope to see a skeleton and just what looked fresh was the fur.
On the way back you are opposite the mud volcano area and I went off trail to reach this pretty thermal feature. I had to be careful where to step since this is an active area, specially on the other side of the river.
That island again from a better viewpoint.
In all, I liked the trail past mile four. The forest was full of mosquitos and fallen trees. I do prefer the area from Canyon, which I repeated to my great luck a few days later.
Enjoy ….