Yellowstone - Upper Firehole River

[homerj]

Sept 23 - Sept 27.
Some friends and I decided to do a late season backpacking trip into Yellowstone. We decided on a short hike (our camp was less than 4 miles from the trailhead) in into the upper Firehole River area. The trail was really easy hiking, most of it (about 2.5 miles) was on an old road from when you use to be able to drive to the Lonestar Geyser.

The weather ended up being very nice and warm. It was almost hot at times! The nights were cool, but most stayed above freezing. I think it only got down to freezing one night. I stayed really warm in my zero degree bag.

The only bad part of the trip was that the fishing was really slow and the fish were small. Most being 6" or smaller although we did see a couple around 10". We didn't catch any worth cooking so we didn't get to eat fresh trout this trip.

The highlight of the trip was the Shoshone Geyser Basin (about 6 mile hike from camp). We had hiked to it back in July when we camped on Shoshone Lake and had found a nice hot tubbing pool where the hot water ran into Shoshone Creek! So we packed in our swimming trunks! The water was wonderful after being in the back country for a few days! Another cool thing about the Shoshone Geyser Basin is you can walk around all the geysers as there is no board walk and rails to keep you safe.

On our last evening just as it was getting dark a HUGE bull bison wondered into our camp!! We were sitting around the fire talking and all of a sudden we saw this bison about 30 yards away! He didn't care one bit about us. He just wondered over to an area void of vegetation, pawed the ground, and then rolled around in the dirt covering himself in dusk. After about 7-8 minutes he wondered off. We were kind of glad to see him leave as we didn't want him rubbing up against our tents and destroying them! I would have taken a picture of him, but decided flash photography could be a bad idea! LOL!

Anyway, we had lots of fun and great weather. Just wished the fishing would have been better. Here's some pics from the trip.

[oldno7]

Very nice TR, thanks for sharing.

[ibenick]

Looks awesome!

[Don]

Beautiful pictures, nice TR. Thanks for sharing.

[accadacca]

Excellent!

[Dr. Nebz]

Great Trip Report!

Hey, I know you were not catching big ones, but catching something is better than catching nothing at all! Looks awesome up there! Gotta get up to the Tetons and the Winds next year!