hiking the Pelican Valley trail in Yellowstone NP
I loved Pelican Valley the first time I hiked it and this time I wanted to complete a lollipop loop. The loop consists of hiking the Mist Creek trail (the trail that starts at the trailhead) up to the Pelican Spring Cabin, taking a left at the Raven Creek Cutoff trail and then return on the Pelican Creek Pelican Valley trail, crossing the ruins of the bridge over Pelican Creek to reach the original trail.
There are restrictions on hiking in the Pelican Valley since it is a bear management area. You can only hike from 9am to 7pm during the summer season. And the recommendation is to travel in groups. Just like the last time I was there, people had already started hiking before 9am, but I do follow the rules. This is not a trail for the casual tourist, unless you are hiking in large groups. I hike solo and I have had very close and scary bear encounters, so I know what I am doing, and what not to do. There are plenty of bison in the valley and that attracts wolves and grizzlies.
I started the hike with 2 people about 50 yards behind me. You enter a small meadow, with a couple of wooden plank bridges (when it rains they are needed) and then enter a forested area. Last time I was pretty afraid of hiking there since I have never been in an area that has a closure time, which sounds scary; this time I was not afraid at all. I ran into two bears in there. The first one was on my right, about 50 yards and the moment he saw me he ran away. I did not bother to yell or take out the bear spray, the bear was not in the mood to investigate me. The second bear was spotted by me and the other people at the same time, to my left and also about 50 yards. This dude just walked away when I think he noticed us. Very uneventful encounters.
Remember those people that got ahead of me at 9am ? I caught up to them (obviously they missed the bears) at an area after the forest. The image below is taken on the way back, so imagine the mirror image. A lone bison was on the trail and these people were unable to figure out that you can leave the trail and walk around the bison.
You are going to have the Pelican Creek all the time to your left for the next five miles at least. Granted, most people turn around at the ruins of the Pelican Creek bridge. So once leaving the forest the views open up. The trail is going to do a 90 degree left turn once you go past the Turbin Lake trail junction. See those bison ? That is where the trail will be. Keep an eye for a thermal area to the left of the trail next to some trees and be careful approaching it !!!!! This is not a popular trail and an accident here will pass unnoticed.
The creek is beautiful, with an immense backdrop.
After the 90 degree turn, you are following the Pelican Creek and you will reach the old ruins of a bridge over the creek. The bridge leaves the impression that the creek is deep, it is the opposite: it is ankle deep at the bridge. This the area where I have seen people on both trips turn around. It gets very lonely after this point.
There are bison all over the place and as you can see they like the trails too. This dude saw me coming and decided to get a move on and use the trail so I had to move away and give him a wide berth.
Once I went past that bison, the forest to the right came closer to the trail and that made me feel more aware of my surrounding, since bears would come from that way. You have to keep your eyes open all the time looking left and right. The vastness of the valley is what attracts me to it. Again, there is a reason this trail’s hiking time is limited by the park rangers, lots of critters.
Finally I reached the Pelican Springs cabin and there are forks to a couple of trails. The one I wanted was the Raven Cutoff trail and for some reason that name was not on the signs, but I followed my GPS and found the trail by taking a left at that sign. You are going to need to keep alert since that trail is barely seen at some areas and the grass is pretty high so you can lose track of the trail. You will run into some plank bridges, but I remember crossing two creeks by foot (I did bring water shoes with me). Tip, cross where the trail ends, do not think you can find a better crossing area, trust me. There are no thermals close to those creeks, so the water is fine.
There are two areas that I am interested in backpacking: (1) you can continue hiking past the cabin and reach campsites further up, or (2) remember the Pelican Creek bridge ruins ? That path (which is the return path for the lollipop loop) will take you west about six miles to Fern Lake.
The cutoff trails ends and, again, I relied on the GPS since you can get confused with trails created by the bison and a couple of trails that take you north to Fern Lake.
The exciting part of doing the Pelican Creek Pelican Valley trail is that you are going to cross the valley !!!! Imagine crossing Hayden Valley or Lamar Valley …………… exactly.
If you noticed at the Pelican Bridge the woods on the far side of the valley ? That is where you are coming back from after leaving the Raven Cutoff trail and hiking the Pelican Creek Pelican Valley trail south.
I was in a bit of a hurry at this point since I started to see rain clouds coming into the valley, but it is was so beautiful. You can run into bison in this area too since now you are in the middle of the valley.
I was prepared for the rain and I got to the Pelican Creek bridge expecting a slow creek crossing but immediately realized the creek is very shallow and it was easy to cross it. After I crossed the creek, while I was taking off the water shoes, I ran into two backpackers that were going to camp at Fern Lake. You can see them below after they crossed the creek.
The rest of the return hike alternated between rain, very cloudy and partial cloudy.
Another peek at the creek and some ducks on it.
I just love this trail, done twice already and next September I will try to get a backpack permit to the campsite past the Pelican Spring cabin or a further distance to Fern Lake. I think maybe I will prioritize Fern Lake in the permit.
Now, it is not all fun and games. Please hike within the permitted times, hike in groups. I have seen pictures from other hikers where they have run into LOTS of bears, LOTS !!!!!!