Yellowstone National Park - Avalanche Peak Trail

Today we finally had a chance to explore Yellowstone National Park from the East Entrance, about an hour's drive west of Cody, Wyoming, where our RV is parked.  Because we've been to Yellowstone before, we wanted to concentrate on some hikes on this eastern side.  Unfortunately, many sections on the eastern side have been ravaged by forest fires, making hiking less interesting.  After a little research, we found two hikes to do today that we thought would be interesting:  a 4-mile hike on the Avalanche Peak Trail, and a 2.5 mile hike on the Storm Point Loop Trail.  More on Storm Point in the next blog entry.  This entry focuses on our hike up Avalanche Peak.

Avalanche Peak is in the Absaroka Range, a sub-range of the Rocky Mountains. The Absarokas stretch about 150 miles in length across the Montana-Wyoming border, and are 75 miles at their widest.  The Absaroka Range forms the eastern boundary of Yellowstone National Park and the western side of the Bighorn Basin in which Cody is situated. The highest peak in the range is Francs Peak, at 13,153 feet; in comparison, Avalanche Peak, which we climbed, is only 10,500 feet. The range is drained by the Yellowstone River to the west and the Shoshone River to the east.  Most of the range lies within protected lands including Yellowstone Park, the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, North Absaroka Wilderness, Teton Wilderness, and Washakie Wilderness, spanning the Bridger-Teton National Forest, Custer National Forest, Gallatin National Forest, and Shoshone National Forest. The range is named after the Absaroka Indians. The name is derived from the Hidatsa name for the Crow people; it means "children of the large-beaked bird."

Well, 10,500 feet is nothing to sneeze at.  Actually, it was the highest elevation we've hiked.  The next highest had been the Augustborg Pass in the Swiss Alps in 2006.  We weren't entirely sure how we would do at that elevation - particularly since we were driving up straight from Cody, which is at an elevation of only 5,000 feet.

Our hike started at an elevation of 8,500 feet.  The weather was brisk, at only 50F, with a stiff breeze that only got stronger as we climbed.  You can see Kathy is bundled up at the trailhead in the photo below:

The first 1.5 miles of our hike were straight up the flank of Avalanche Peak through spruce forest. While there had been no pervasive forest fires in this area recently, nevertheless there had been extensive blowdown of older trees.  So parts of our hike were through forest that included "ghost" trees.  These white skeletons contrasted dramatically with the understory, which is starting to turn yellow, gold and orange in the fall weather:

Almost at treeline, Kathy spotted this young mule deer buck.  We had heard about him from other hikers, so we were pretty sure that he was unimpressed with hikers.  He stood patiently and watched us cautiously as we passed, making sure that we were no more dangerous than the average Yellowstone hikers:

Treeline was marked with a stone cairn, where we layered up and prepared for our ascent to the shoulder of the Avalanche Peak, another mile or so.  Here is Kathy with our objective in sight behind her:

Only a little further straight up, and we arrived at a broad plateau which was the shoulder of Avalanche Peak.  From here, we could see across to the neighboring peak --

-- and out into the Absaroka Range and Shoshone National Forest to the east --

-- as well as pretty Sylvan Lake directly below us and gigantic Yellowstone Lake and Yellowstone National Park in the distance to the south:

These photos don't do the experience justice, however, because it was very windy (perhaps 40 mph winds, with gusts up to 60 mph) and the temperature had plunged into the mid-40's Fahrenheit. This 360 degree video of the view from Avalanche Peak gives a better idea what the experience was like.

We found shelter in an alpine swale behind a small grove of spruce trees and ate our lunch, then climbed over a nearby ridge to enjoy the views to the north.  Having satisfied our curiosity in this regard, we returned to the trail and started downward.  Our total mileage was about 4.5 miles and our elevation gain (and loss) about 1,800 feet, which was among the steepest climbs we've hiked.  We might have proceeded on another 1.5 miles and 400 feet to summit Avalanche Peak, but we decided not to do so, because we also wanted to do another 2.5 miles hike out to Storm Point on Yellowstone Lake.  More on that second hike in the next blog entry.