We knew, even at the beginning of the planning process for this trip, that we wanted to do an overnight backpacking trip. We had several criteria for the trip:

• we really only wanted to do a two day, one night trip. It was my brother and my sons first overnight backpack, and I didn't want it to be their last!
• we were looking for a trail that would be challenging, but not too difficult, see reasoning above.
• scenery, scenery, scenery......
• warm, and as dry as possible.

It appeared that the Yellowstone River Trail would be a good choice, but is a 3 day, 2 night trip when it is started from the Hellroaring Trailhead, as described in the guidebooks. We decided to do this trip, but cut about 5 miles off of the total distance by starting at the Blacktail Trailhead instead.

We had a little bit of excitement even before we hit the trail. We were in the Tower Ranger Station picking up our permits and watching the mandatory backcountry videotape, when the Ranger spotted a black bear near the horse corrals right behind the ranger station. We watched the bear mosey along for awhile and snapped a couple of pictures.

Black bear by horse corral behind the Tower ranger station.

The first order of business for doing this hike is securing a ride, or a shuttle, so that we could leave a car at the end of the trail in the town of Gardiner. This actually turned out to be easier than we thought it would be, we asked at the front desk at the Roosevelt Lodge and quickly collared a volunteer staff member who would drive us to the end of the trail the next morning.

So, about 8:00am on Sunday, June 13th, we drove out to the Blacktail Trailhead, I dropped off all of our backpacks, as well as Joe and Ben and followed John from Roosevelt to the end of the Yellowstone Trail in Gardiner. I left our car there and John dropped me off back at Blacktail around 9:30am and we were off.

The hiking guidebooks said that this trail was mostly slightly downhill, but there would be a small uphill right at the beginning. It wasn't bad at all and before long we were hiking through beautiful meadows and rolling hills.

Beautiful rolling hills looking NW from Blacktail Trail.	Blacktail Deer Creek and burned timber.

The past forest fires were really obvious through this area, as shown in the picture above. What was also obvious was all of the fresh, young growth of wildflowers, shrubs and trees. The hiking along this area was very pleasant with the rushing Blacktail Deer Creek to our right and a small hilly meadow with abundant wildflowers to our left. Right about here we ran across a solo hiker heading the opposite direction that we were. He was coming from the Yellowstone River campgrouds, 1Y2 I think, and was heading to the Lamar Valley. I am not sure what route he was taking, but by my calculation, it is a LONG hike by any route.

Ben hiking Blacktail. The creek is to his right and the hilly meadow is to his left.	Joe hiking along the same stretch.

Suspension bridge over the Yellowstone River on the Blacktail Trail.	Ben and Joe hiking across the bridge.	The Yellowstone River was fast, wide and high here at this time of the year.

After the river, the trail started to climb a little bit through forested terrain. We stopped next to Crevice Lake for a short lunch break. Crevice Lake is small, with no visible inlets or outlets. The guidebooks say that there are no fish in this lake, and I believe it. We sat down for some water and lunch on a large rock, right next to the near complete, although scattered, skeleton of an Elk. After leaving Crevice Lake, the terrain started to change from forested, shaded trails, to hot, sunny, and rocky trails. It was getting quite warm. We stopped for a couple of minutes at a footbridge going over a noisy, tumbling creek coming from the north. Standing on the bridge looking north, the raging creek had a very nice cooling effect, it seemed at least 10 degrees cooler and was very pleasant.

Ben resting near the scattered bones of an Elk skeleton.	Ben resting at bridge over "Cooling" Creek.

There were a couple of steep sections in between here and 1Y1, steep uphill and steep downhill. The trail was rocky, and at times it was carved directly out of the side of the mountain. Going uphill was a real lung and thigh buster, but going downhill was havoc on the knees. On the uphills, Ben's young lungs and legs allowed him to actually pull ahead of Joe and I for the first time since we arrived at Yellowstone, ahhh youth! There was a very short side trail that gave a good view of Knowles Falls. The river was extremely wide and fast here, which you can see clearly in the picture below and on the right.

Joe and Ben looking down the river at Knowles Falls.	The river was really raging here.

The picture on the left shows the rocky, steep trail, clinging to the side of the slope. On the downhill side, the trail wound steeply down and weaved it's way back and forth between huge boulders.

Joe and Ben taking a short break after the difficult climb up the rocky slope.	Joe decending down the rocky slope to 1Y1 campground.

Finally, what to our wondering eyes should appear? Our destination for the day, campsite 1Y1. It was still mid afternoon so we had plenty of time to setup camp, get organized and relax. A tradition that I have when backpacking is to carry along one, large, beer for a treat with dinner the first night of a trip. This trip was no exception, so we put the beers, and a Dr. Pepper for Ben, in a mesh bag and sunk it in the Yellowstone River to chill.

The campgroup was nice, although I thought that the cooking area and bear pole were a little bit close to the sleeping area. We setup the tent, hung the food, and immediately headed down to the river to cool our feet. The campsite had a very nice, and quite large, sand beach. The sand was very fine, very soft, and almost black in color. The river, which was raging hard and fast, formed a quiet, calm, almost lagoon-like, area at the beach. You can see this pretty clearly in the picture below and to the right.

The water was COLD. It seemed to be just a few degrees above freezing, but who knows? We started to play silly little games like, "Let's see who can stand in the water up to their knees the longest", I think the winner was just around 30 seconds....I told you the water was COLD! This quickly progressed to "Let's see who can dip their head under", and soon became, "What the heck, let's just dive in!". Let's just say that it was invigorating.

We spent the rest of the afternoon playing in the water, lounging on our sleeping pads on the beach, and scoping out the other side of the river for wildlife.

1Y1 campground from near the cooking area.	1Y1 campground, the sandy beach is clearly visible.