Yellowstone National Park
Wyoming
August 21, 22, 23 & 24
2020
This adventure was Amazing Relaxing Troubling Remote
One of our Trek Planner Team members, Josh, had been making plans for a small group to backpack 18 miles roundtrip to Union Falls in Yellowstone National Park. I typically don’t like backpacking, because it involves careful gear planning, which I’m terrible at. But, if Josh said we would be doing an 18 mile day-hike to Union Falls, I probably would be more excited – go figure right? Well, it’s always way more fun and adventurous than you think and I was happy I was part of this group.
On Friday, Kevin and I packed up my car with our gear and we drove up to Grassy Lake Reservoir in Wyoming. We arrived at night and couldn’t find the RV everyone else was staying in, so Kevin and I set up the tent and camped up on a hill from the reservoir.
For some reason, whenever I think of Yellowstone I think of bears. So this night, I was somewhat nervous despite the chance of a bear encounter being very slim. It’s because of this worry that I previously bought an air horn. Yep, you read that right: an air horn. I was too cheap to buy bear spray and we had a few canisters of the stuff in our group already and the air horn was only a couple of bucks.
Years before, when I was living near Denali National Park, I asked a park ranger what would be a good bear deterrent. He said bear spray is great, but that also an air horn would be effective too.
Of course we didn’t have cell service to call our friends here, so we woke up a little early and made breakfast. We brought some potatoes, eggs, bacon, and a few homegrown tomatoes to make breakfast with. Is there anything better than homegrown tomatoes?? It made our breakfast all the better! (Before we left from home, we baked some potatoes so we could eat them on our first night backpacking. We also packed some steaks!)
We packed up fast and drove around some more trying to find the RV and the rest of the group. We didn’t realize that there were people all over the place camping! At night, we thought there were only a few people, but in the morning, we discovered there were tons of people!
We didn’t see the RV, so we drove down to the Union Falls trailhead to see if it was down there. We quickly saw it and saw a boy outside the RV. Neither Kevin nor I knew who this boy was, but I recognized the RV. We were thoroughly confused, but we eventually stopped and went up to the RV and found out that it was our friend’s brother’s son. We found the rest of the group getting ready inside the RV.
Everyone was of course making bets on who would have the heaviest backpack – everyone thought I would, of course. Since I have no ultralight backpacking gear my pack weight close to 45 lbs! That’s pretty dang heavy for a two night trip. After rearranging some gear and leaving behind some stuff, I got my pack down to about 35 lbs. I think David and Jeff got their packs to around 20 lbs. Oh well! I’ll just make someone carry half my stuff if I get tired.
If you haven’t backpacked to Union Falls you NEED to do it. You are hiking in some of the best Yellowstone wilderness and get to see the 2nd largest waterfall in the national park. Plus, there is Scout Pools to swim in too. The hike is about 19 miles roundtrip to Union Falls. We were lucky enough to get a campsite close to Union Falls and Scout Pool.
Just as we were getting close to our campsite, we saw two rangers approached us on horseback. We asked them general information about the area and bears. They said sometimes bears come through the area, but overall it isn’t likely they will be around.
They told us the normal procedures about not having anything in your tent that can give off a scent (such as toothpaste, chapstick, snacks, etc.). There were a group of rangers that were staying at the small ranger cabin a little ways from our campsite. They were friendly and helpful during our stay (we didn’t need anything, but it was nice to know they were close if we did).
We went to Scout Pools for a dip in the warm-ish water after we got to camp. Officially it’s called Ouzel Pool. It’s nicknamed Scout Pool from all the boy scouts venturing from Camp New Fork. I remember hiking here as a scout too. The warm water for Scout Pools comes from the warm river and fills it up.
On our first night, Kevin and I reheated our baked potatoes and then grilled steak and mushrooms. It tasted soooo good and it was worth the extra little weight in order to eat better. Everyone else was left to their miserable selves and ate their grass sandwiches, chipmunk brisket, or tree bark stew, while we were eating like kings! We should have brought more potatoes for the next day though.
This next day we went swimming at Scout Pools again and spent the day hiking to Union Falls. The hike to Union Falls added about another mile from our campsite and it wasn’t difficult at all. Union Falls is the second tallest waterfall in Yellowstone National Park and we had it all to ourselves. It’s called Union Falls because of two rivers that meet up right at the edge of the waterfall. The trail ends right at a beautiful overlook of it.
Yellowstone is amazing!
After this, we hiked back down and made some dinner! Unfortunately for me, this meant I was out of steak and potatoes and was forced to cook some freeze dried lasagna. Since we couldn’t have fires, we just kind of sat around our stoves and just talked the rest of the night.
These are some of my best memories. A group of friends, miles away from civilizations, no cell phones, no distractions, no TV and internet, just us hanging around and talking about whatever. Naturally, there are lots of laughter and jokes too – I don’t remember any of jokes, but I remember laughing pretty hard.
It was time for bed and after hiking yesterday and today, I was exhausted and looking forward to another night of terrible sleep. Bears were always on the back of my mind on this trip. It was a comforting thought to know that there were rangers nearby. But still, I was always thinking about a bear rolling through the bushes at night smelling the steak in my stomach from the night before.
I fell asleep pretty fast, but woke a few hours later and thought I heard some noises to the east of our tent. I sat up in bed for a second and noticed Kevin still asleep, apparently not aware of our pending doom. I kept hearing the noises and couldn’t tell if it was a large animal or what. After a few minutes, I began to care less about the noises and I fell back asleep.
While sleeping, I had a dream that the noises were back. In my dream, I was in my sleeping bag and I woke up and could see a large bear paw right outside our tent and the bear was trying to get inside!
I quickly panicked and heard Kevin screaming for me to get the air horn and scare the bear away! “GET THE AIR HORN!!!!” Kevin screamed at me. Like a true hero, I scrambled as fast as I could reaching for the air horn in the tent pocket. Knowing that my friends’ lives now depended on me I had but one task to accomplish to save our group… “I HOPE YOU LIKE THIS, YOU STUPID BEAR!!” I yelled, proudly holding down the air horn button few times.
I give three quick presses on the horn, sure that the bear would be more than frightened of the noise. The horn blared extremely loud and the bear retreats back into the bushes like a coward. At this moment, I actually wake up from my dream with, to my surprise, the air horn in my hand…I just realized that I had actually shot the air horn off! (OK, it wasn’t actually sleepwalking like prancing around the camp while asleep, but this is more sleepmoving.)
Everyone woke up immediately in cold sweats just as if an actual emergency was happening! Not one person thanked me though for saving them from the bear by the way. I was still somewhat half-asleep during all of this. I heard mumbles of “what’s going on??”, and “who did that??” Kevin was wondering too and I was rightfully shocked he wanted me to explain myself rather than thank me for saving his life, but I was already falling asleep.
Right before I fell asleep I heard David in the next tent ask in the most annoyed tone I had ever heard: “…how we doin’?” I mumbled some more stuff and really don’t remember too much. I fell soundly asleep again, happy that I had just saved the camp.
In the morning there were a lot of questions – it felt more like an interrogation if I can be honest. People who have camped with me before know that I usually sleeptalk and sleepwalk, but to actually use an airhorn while sleeping was on a whole new level of sleep weirdness and stupidness.
Some in our group said that they couldn’t fall back asleep for a few hours after the air horn incident. I felt bad, of course. Sleep while camping, is sometimes hard to come by. Can you imagine if I had a bear spray next to me instead of an air horn?? Well, we never did see a bear. We saw a few bear prints though, but we didn’t even see an elk, deer, moose, or anything.
There were plenty of squirrels and chipmunks however. We packed up our gear and headed back to our cars.
What a great trip!
