a solo hike along Slough Creek in Yellowstone
The Slough Creek is located near the Lamar Valley area. If you are driving towards Lamar from the West, you will see the entrance to a dirt road to your left, with a couple of bathroom facilities next to the road. You just drive that dirt road to the trailhead, where you can also find next to it the Slough Creek campground.
Below is an approximate path of my hike.
My only fear was the one and a half mile dirt road to the trailhead. My rental was a Ford Mustang (yes, I asked for a compact car and I got a muscle car); which has barely any clearance. Well, I scouted the road entrance the day before, plus the satellite map, and I noticed some pullouts along the way so I was confident that if I was there early enough I would find an empty pullout and park the car and hike the rest of the way to the trailhead. Turn out my fears were exaggerated, the dirt road was great and I was able to drive all the way to the trailhead without any issues. At the parking lot I ran into a guy with a cool dog that was missing a front leg.
The trail starts its first mile with elevation gain. I noticed a guy spraying something the way pest control people do using those canisters, maybe invasive species ? He was prepared carrying also bear spray. After that, the path levels and you finally get to see Slough Creek and the valley that surrounds it.
Even though the smoke from forest fires were obscuring the distant mountains, the sun was out enough to show the beautiful fall colors. I let two people go in before I did: I caught up to the first two guys (they were stopped at a pond maybe setting up a camera shot (?) and then a backpacker that I did not see, so assume that he left the trail at the first campsite).
About two miles in there is a cabin, I assume the rangers or park biologists use it.
The fall colors were amazing on the trees along the trail. It was very peaceful hike, no crowds, this was further confirmation that most visitors do not hike in Yellowstone. Now that gives us hikers a greater responsibility to be aware for critters.
The trail follows Slough Creek and I started noticing that everyone on the trail were backpackers that were out fishing in the creek. One of the camps was pretty cool since it stood close to the trail on top of a small hill (it looked like someone created it because how cool it looked, but in reality it was a natural feature) that overlooked the creek. I want to say that it was the fourth campsite along the trail, maybe the third.
It looked so peaceful that people were fishing, moving from fishing spot to fishing spot. At some point I managed to say hi to a group that got close to the trail moving to a new location.
I mean, these colors ………………. I kept a close eye to my right where the forest was since bears would be coming from that way. But no bears this day, good. On the left I would look at the hills past the creek for wildlife.
You eventually reach the Montana border I think at mile 8. I decided to go on for another mile. I was constantly using the binoculars to check the hills across the creek. There were lots of rock formations that would be ideal for wolf dens.
So, I turned around at this location:
On the way back, the colors of these bushes were spectacular !!!
I was happy with this trail, it was mostly level and the views were always great. As other trails, it had barely any traffic, if I saw anyone it was within the first two miles. I was hiking pretty slow since I wanted to use the binoculars to check out the landscape dotted with bison. The bison were very mellow along the creek.
