hiking the Sepulcher Mountain trail in Yellowstone NP
This is a long day hike that took me up to Sepulcher Mountain, out the back and then back around it.
I was not expecting this to be an eventful hike, but oh boy was I sooooooooooooooo wrong.
The trail starts next to the Mammoth Terraces and shares the trailhead with the Beaver Ponds trail, which is the popular trail that tourist take. And how do you recognize a tourist ? Well, I was less than half a mile into the trail, still not yet to the intersection that would take me to Sepulcher Mountain when I caught up to two European tourists. The wife stopped me and asked about bears and I gave them my regular people speech, bla bla bla. They were really afraid since they said they saw animal tracks on the trail, which were actually elk tracks, and that spooked them. Well, at least they have a story to tell back home. Only if they knew that a real bear was in the area ………………
Turns out that the snow from two days ago did not melt, but the trail was easy to follow, but like every other damn time, I was the first person on the trail that day. Until you are getting close to the top, the trail meanders among trees, so there are no views at that point. “The view” that I got was when I noticed tracks on the trail itself of ……………………….. a grizzly.
Ignore the commentary, that is a grizzly bear track, a single one. The video was taken once the tracks became clear on the trail and at that point I had to figure out something; is the bear just ahead of me ? Well, to me the way to know if to touch the tracks and see. Turns out that the tracks were frozen, so that tells me they were done the day or night before. Sure, the bear could still be bedded somewhere next to the trail, so I went into super alert mode and made lots of noise to become a nuisance. I think that is the word that I want to use, nuisance, I want the bear to know that a pain in the ass is in the vicinity and in order for peace and quiet might as well go somewhere else where it won’t get bothered.
I continued following the tracks for a quarter of a mile, pretty tense time, until the trail left the trees and went over a hump: the bear left the trail at that point going left and me on the trail going right.
Here is where the snow became a pain in the ass. The trail became unrecognizable and all I could do is use my GPS to approximate its location. The snow at that point was about 6-9 inches deep and I made very slow progress, thinking at some point that I was going to lose the trail when ………………………………. about 50 yards behind me someone yelled “good morning”. It turns out it was a dude practicing for a triathlon and caught up to me and had the trail memorized so at that point I had a clear route to the top following his tracks. Now, this is the perfect way to alert that you are behind someone on a trail, from a DISTANCE and not just say “hi” 10 feet and scare the shit out of me.
There is a definite summit and this video was taken from it:
Just like Bunsen Peak, the trail takes you to the other side of the mountain and thankfully the runner took that route because once you reach the other side there is a snow slope that you can’t tell where the trail it but from the video below you can see that the tracks from the runner made it easy for me.
It is beautiful, with constant views of Electric Peak. Once you get to the other side, there are no trees so the snow has melted and the trail is again visible.
Going down is now just following switchbacks while admiring the fall colors of the trees in the distance, which I love:
Eventually, the trail levels down and you will reach an intersection. To the left the trail continues and to the right another trail takes you to Cache Lake. I had time and decided to visit it. The trail follows a creek so it is important to make noise above the creek, although I was not making noise at that time; I was just being alert to my surroundings.
Yes, making noise for bears ………………. I have developed an instinct that I cannot easily explain. When I started hiking Yellowstone I was accustomed to make noise all the time on the trails, except on the way back when I was too tired and couldn’t care less if a bear ate me. Now, I make noise when I think I have to. When following those grizzly tracks earlier in the day it made sense to make lots of noise, but following that creek it didn’t make sense. I just was alert and would talk to myself once in a while. And by being alert I ran into this “suicide pact” between a rock and a tree:
Now, why the speech about instinct ? Here it goes ……………. I am walking on the trail and it is very quiet, still no people on the trail, I run into a deer (elk? don’t remember), kept walking and I think I am about two miles from Cache Lake (don’t quote me on the distances) when I start getting this feeling that danger is ahead. A real feeling that something bad is going to happen to me if I continue on the trail; I have plenty of time to get to the trail and back, but this dread is real and I have to pay attention to it so at that point I turned around. Did I hear a bear ? Did I see a bear ? No, I didn’t, but instincts are real and at the end of the day hiking is not reaching a distance or a fast pace, it is enjoying the views and being alert to your surroundings, and these surroundings told me that bad news were ahead of me.
The return path takes you into the Snow Pass trail until there is a spur that takes you to the original in trail. I figured why it was called Snow Pass by all the signs for the cross country skiers that I saw on the trail. This looks like a popular winter ski trail. I will leave you with a video from the Mammoth Hot Springs’ middle terrace: