The trail starts from the park road across from the Bunsen Peak trail and crosses sage brush flats heading towards Sepulcher Mountain. I saw very large grizzly tracks on the trail within a half mile of the road. The bear had been going the opposite direction and I never actually saw it.
You can see Electric Peak ten miles away on the top right of the frame
.
After about three miles the trail went along the base of Sepulcher Mountain.
It rained the night before, and the grass and sage was wet in the morning. I stopped after about four miles in one of the beautiful meadows along the trail to change into dry socks.
The trail only went through a bit of woods near the Cache Lake spur trail.
Just before getting to the Gardner River I turned right and headed towards Electric Peak.
The trail had been fairly level until I finally got onto the mountain itself.
Then I chose a comfortable pace and kept moving along a spine of rock towards the summit.
It was near 90 degrees and hot on the way up,
but I was glad to be there and the views just kept getting better.
Eventually I found a little shade behind some rocks where I hid as I took off my socks and boots and put them in the sun to dry. It was all good. I had plenty of water and my body was feeling great.
While I was drying my stuff a couple of young guys came up the trail and passed me. They were the only other people I saw on the mountain that day.
I had plenty of time, the weather was good, and everything was going great.
About 300 yards and 100 vertical feet from the summit I came to a fairly vertical rock face with natural steps going up.
I stopped there and drank some water. One of the guys who had passed me was on the summit, so I waited until they came down and visited with them.
There was a trail down and to the left of the rock face, but they said they went up and across. " It's only 300 yards and the first 100 are the toughest, then just look around and there will always be a decent choice." they told me.
With that, they headed down and I headed up.
Half way across a rock catwalk of sorts, nothing was feeling right so I sat down where I was to consider things.
After 45 minutes I decided against the summit and went down the rock stairs to the spine of the mountain.
I just sat there awhile.
I didn't think I'd have another chance to do this again and wasn't feeling good about giving up.
So I started back up the stairs, and again nothing felt right..
I decided to head down.
It was a hard decision to make, and I was disappointed in myself, but the walk was easy, and I saw three bighorn sheep in the distance.
I was surprised how good I felt physically. Everything was so much easier than the last time I was there.
I found a patch of snow lingering between rocks and put some on my neck to cool off. I made a couple of snowballs and threw them over the cliff on the other side.
Sepulcher Mountain looked small in the distance.
The walk out was easy and I spent the afternoon at Yellowstone lake swimming and then making some photos at sunset.
Two days later I visited with a ranger at Old Faithful who offered more information about the actual summit. So I hope I get the chance to try again, and if I do I'll let you know how it goes.
No comments:
Post a Comment