Meghan's Blog

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August 11, 2006

I Have Not Been Eaten by a Grizzly Bear

But I am back. It's been a most outstanding week. I could catalog it all in a travelogue-worthy write-up, but I don't want my small readership to die from boredom. How about I tell you about my runs?

I ran here. This mountainfront is laced with trails and roads in the summer. I started at a trailhead on the right side of this map, about 500 vertical feet above the lodges at the bottom, and ran all the way to the top on a dirt road-type surface that degraded as it climbed higher. Near the end, I was crossing scree fields and the road-thing was composed entirely of boulders and rocks. I don't know who would actually drive on this thing, perhaps a groomer in the winter? I think I ended up at the top somewhere above Bradley's Meadow on the right side of the map. It was a gorgeous, cloudless weekend morning. There were a few other people out, a mountain biker and a hiker with a dog. My dog went with me, but I fear she was pretty unhappy with me as we crossed the scree field. The rocks were rough and sharp and her poor little feet were bare!

I ran somewhere in this area. I actually don't know where I was, running on some flat county dirt road. I didn't have a stellar time in this run, as I was accosted with no less than 17 dogs over the course of less than 90 minutes. One house that I ran past had 7 unleashed dogs that chased June and I down the road. I did a lot of yelling, perhaps even more yelling than running. The scenery was outstanding, though, and it was another cool, sunny morning.

I ran in this area of the Custer National Forest. We were spending a couple days in the area of the Beartooth Mountains and Red Lodge, MT. As an aside, this part of the world is one of the most beautiful places that I have ever seen. I've visited the Beartooth Mountains only 2 brief times, but I continue to lose my breath over the scenery out there. I asked for directions to a forest service road to run, and found it to be partially paved when I got there. I ran for a while on the pavement before it petered into gravel. The road ran parellel to a creek with a name I never learned. The water descended fast and furious, and its noise filled the valley that I ran in. There were a few people out recreating on this road, one female runner in addition to me, and a family out for a walk with their doxen dog. Incidentally, who takes doxen dogs to the wilderness? Those things are like munchable snacks for just about everything out there in the wilderness. However, the doxen seemed to be enjoying itself, so who am I to judge?

I ran this trail starting from its southern end just outside of Bozeman, MT. I did this run in the heat of a Montana summer afternoon. It was probably only 85 or 90 out, but it was hot. I've taken to carrying water on these runs, but I ended up giving my water to my dog. I thought there would be creek crossings for her, but every draingage was bone dry. She was suffering more than I was, and she suffered for a few days afterwards as well. When she gets really hot, she'll go into an episode where she sheds hair for days afterwards. She's still shedding black and white border collie hair, in disgusting clumps all over my house. This run mostly overlooked the valley that is Bozeman. Rather than checking out Bozeman sprawl, I kept my eyes focused on the mountains across the valley, and how they seem to jut up into the sky with miraculous intention.

And today, I ran to the top of Mt. Washburn, back home in Yellowstone. This is the view from the top. Trails.com has a better description of this trail than I can write at the moment: "The Mount Washburn Trail from Dunraven Pass is one of three trails to the summit of Mount Washburn, the cone of an ancient volcano. The trail is a turn-of-the-century wagon road that approaches the summit from the southwest. The broad alpine slopes of the mountain are filled with a magnificent display of wildflowers, rivaling any display in the park. The upper slopes are a summer pasture for bighorn sheep. Perched on the 10,243-foot summit is the fire lookout tower and viewing platform. The incredible, sweeping 360-degree panoramic vistas include the Yellowstone Plateau and surrounding mountains, Yellowstone Lake, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Hayden Valley, the Grand Tetons, and several distant geyser basins. Below the tower is a glass-enclosed observation room with a telescope." This was my first attempt to do an even higher elevation run. I plan to do a higher elevation run at least once a week for the next few weeks. It was tough, no doubt. This was true grizzly country, nice and high and above treeline and cool, just where grizzlies like to spend their time in the heat of the summer. However, this is a popular hike, so I'm sure the trail traffic keeps the bears away.

Thus completes my review of the best-of-the-best runs I did in the last week.

Posted by Meghan at August 11, 2006 9:32 PM

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