hiking among bison at the Mary Mountain trail in Yellowstone NP
Mary Mountain is a trail that enters the Hayden Valley and that makes it a place to be careful when hiking. This was the second time I hiked it, but this time I didn’t hike the trail that far in because I ran into two interesting things: thermals and bison.
This is a barely hiked trail, you may see people for the first mile and that is it. The whole trail is 20 miles long and it is point to point. I entered the trail on the East side, next to the Yellowstone River. This is the only trail within the Hayden Valley; I have since found another way to hike within the Hayden Valley but that is for another trip report.
The nice part of hiking on the fall is the beautiful colors. I think I may have taken this video about 1 mile into the trail.
And this about a mile further into the trail.
Then the woods that you see to the left are gone and all that is there is the immensity of Hayden Valley. You can start noticing bison and thermal areas in the distance.
At around mile 3-4 I ran into a large herd of bison, which I give quite a bit of space. At mile 5 you have to cross a creek and while debating where to cross it, I noticed a social trail to my right. I got curious and decided to follow this social trail and see where it took me. Well, it took me to an interesting thermal feature:
I spend a bit of time looking at it and then I decided to turn around and spend some time with the bison that I ran into the way in, plus explore a bit of Violet Creek.
You have to be careful with Violet Creek since it is quite hot.
Most of the time you have Alum Creek running along the trail.
So after walking along Violet Creek for about 200 yards, I came back to the trail and relaxed watching the bison herd.
One final nice shot of Alum Creek
