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Madison Range, days
1-6
Day 1
Solstice, 1998. Warm sun on my back, I'm sitting in a high meadow of spring beauties spotted with the brilliant yellow of big glacier lilies. Finally! My gosh! So much to do . . . but now: started! Broken clouds give the overlook of Yellowstone and the Gallatin Range a wonderful dimension.
Phil and I set a camp up at the top of some goats' haunt. We drop packs and walk over to the edge. Beautiful. Take a step and kaboom! A goat explodes from a flat spot just below us in a blur of white and disappears into dust and tumbling rocks. More goats, garlic couscous, and Jim Beam top the day off well.
Day 2
Half or 3/4 of a mile and we're on skis. Perfect conditions. An easy way to do the pass into the Burnt Fork. More goats on the top of the ridge. As we scurry from snow patch to snow patch, darned if a pair of songdogs don't jump out in front of us. Then it's up over the pass into Upper Tepee Basin. Our camp is named for the two chipmunks that keep us company on our 10 x 10 square foot bare patch. The tent's on snow tonight.
Day 3
Rather than head for the pass, we opt to go straight up over the ridge as weather is starting to set in. From the foot of White Peak, where we break the crest, our view has diminished. No Tepee Creek; no Cabin Creek. I guess they must be there someplace. After a nice ski down into the Cabin Creek basin, we change to hiking gear just in time to get pounded by a rainstorm. Strange transition. Conditions being less than ideal at that point, when we found a trail, it was the wrong one. We went the wrong way. Seeing our mistake in a high meadow under Sage Peak, we bushwack down a fork of Cabin Creek to the main trail crossing. Lo, the sun comes out and we spread a few things out to dry. Then it's up and over towards Axoltl Lake. A herd of elk mislead us down one of their trails near the crest of the ridge, but we get back on the trail in time to make a camp in Cabin Creek before the rain sets in again.
Day 4
The rain holds off long enough to break camp, then it's up and over to Beaver Creek. As we come over the low divide, there is just enough off a breeze to catch a teasing glimpse up Hilgard Creek and a couple of peaks around the basin. We eat a dry lunch on the porch of the Forest Service cabin and once again are lured by a break in the weather up the West Fork, even though the basin looks dark and gloomy. Several miles up, we have an interesting and difficult creek crossing. Then up. Snow. When we break onto the high bench a mile short of the basins, it is a snow covered world again. Rather than don skis, we root around and eke a camp on a little dry ridge edge. Real nice until late afternoon when the rain comes on hard again, driving us quickly into the tent, set up once again on snow.
Day 5
I am again writing from the porch of Beaver Creek cabin, where we were driven by unrelenting rain, wind, and low clouds. No crossing the Hillgards this trip. In fact, it was a heck of a march back down. With the heavy rains all night and morning, the snow was softened and creek crossings were miserable. How come the mule deer looks so completely serene? Rain. Did I say rain? We are a couple of wet, miserable puppies. Well, we opted out - set up in the cabin and dried out with a big pot of vegetarian chili and dried black beans. Wonderful dinner, followed by an evening serenade. Towards dark, the rain quit and we took a walk with a number of moose and elk.
Day 6
A hard rain all night again breaks in a timely fashion for our march down Beaver Creek. As we walk the highway to call Phil's ride, the rain, of course, starts 1/4 mile from the lodge. But nothing a cup of hot coffee won't fix. Well, the perspective of 5 days in the Madison Range at the edge of the Yellowstone Ecosystem and the beginning of the corridor will be examined more closely as I move on to a 5-day solo stint through the roaded and motorized Gravelly Range. The Madison Range is definitely a wildlife-rich area. We saw elk, deer, moose, goats, and bear sign. Will the Gravelly's be so rich? Will I melt away in the rain as the snow in the high country is doing?
