July 2, 2011

Dug out our boots and took a hike to Shoshone Lake in the Park about an hour's drive from OF. It's the largest lake in the US without road access and sits at about 8,400 feet near the continental divide. It's just a 3 mile hike in but our trip was complicated by lots of snow on the trail and still a lot of stream flooding from the continued spring thaw. We headed out from the DeLacy trail head named for Walter DeLacy who led a band of gold prospectors into the area back in 1871 a year before Yellowstone Park was created by Congress.
The trail head is near the spot where thieves repeatedly robbed some of the first stage coaches carrying tourists through the park in the 1880's as the horse teams slowed crossing the high divide. One infamous band of thieves ran out of luck when one of their members chose to have his picture taken with his victims during a holdup. He and several of his compadres were sentenced to 5 years of hard labor in Leavenworth , Kansas.





If you look closely you can see some beavers did their handiwork while a couple of feet of snow was still on the ground.





We ran into a young lady from Berlin, Germany and we traded snapshots of each other. We thought she was kind of brave hiking alone with no bear protection as there were bear warnings posted everywhere. Ann and I on the other hand took no chances and were loaded down with a $45 canister of bear spray and enough "jingle bells" on our packs to make Santa Claus jealous! Later in the day we came across another hiker and he said he had just seen a black bear near the very spot we had exchanged photos with our new friend from Berlin!



Here's a photo as we just left the trail and came upon Shoshone Lake...it's just huge, deep and crystal clear. The mountains in the background are part of the Absoroka range. There are another 21 miles of hiking trails that surround the lake and overnight camping is by reservation only to help reduce the chance of crowding and overuse.

A shot of our lunch spot. Our employer, Xanterra, packs free lunches and drinks for workers who travel around the Park on their days off. Kind of nice as the nearest grocery store is about 50 miles away in West Yellowstone! No luck fishing though.  The fish are just too darn smart up here.




Had to cross this makeshift footbridge as our part of our trail was washed out and under lots of water. It looks kind of tame but the water was actually about 4 feet deep and too wide to jump!





One of the washed out trails sections.



Once we reached the lake, had lunch and fished for a couple of hours it was time to hike out. We estimated we covered about 8 miles and had a great time exploring some of Yellowstone's back country that we've not had time to see in past years!


One of the dead fall we had to crawl under along the trail.  Looks like
a black bear uses the same trail

Take care and we'll keep posting

Ann & Jim