Thursday July 2 - Hyalite Canyon hike

We slept in a little and were on the trail at 8:15. 
Hyalite Canyon is a beautiful valley that heads back into some 10,000 foot peaks south of Bozeman.  Our goal for the day was to summit Hyalite Peak, which is 10,298 ft.  It would have been my first Montana summit of note.  But based on what the rangers said we were already resigned to the fact that we probably wouldn't get to the top because of all the snow.  We were the first car at the trailhead...I always like being the first one in.  The trail follows Hyalite Creek much of the way and there are several gorgeus waterfalls along the way. I'm not really a "waterfall person" but these were pretty impressive!  There's a lot of water coming down from the mountains right now.

We encountered snow much lower than we expected to...for a while we were able to walk on top of it but did posthole some.  We finally ran into so much that we started bushwhacking...that's always fun!  I climbed an 8 foot cliff without a rope...and it was wet and slippery too.  But we were careful.  We finally made it to Hyalite Lake which sits a little under 9000 feet.  Once we got up there it was completely snow-covered except a few really rocky patches, and we could see a lot of snow on the route we'd need to take up to the peak.  At that point we knew for sure we weren't going to make it. It wouldn't be safe, and it takes so much longer to walk through snow.

But I was happy we'd made it that far.  We were headed up another slope to have lunch.

when some dark clouds started to roll in so we stayed down lower.  Marc gave me a mini-lesson in using an ice axe (thanks Kim, for loaning yours to me). 


We headed down just as the thunder started.  By then the snow was a lot softer in places and I was going too fast due to the thunder...I took a couple of falls until I slowed down.  Then I fell later on a patch of ice and bruised my knee even more.  Postholing up to your waist takes it's toll too.



By the end of this hike, combined with my bruises from the bathtub fall, I was really hurting, and my legs were various lovely shades of purple.   But it was still an awesome hike!It started to really pour when we were 1/4 mile from the trailhead and we got pretty wet.  We then drove out of the valley to our bed and breakfast on the north side of Bozeman near the Bridger Bowl ski area.

It's a beautiful valley and this b&b is wonderful!  It was originally part of a camp.  It's rustic and homey and we loved the log cabin atmosphere.  We showered and went back to town to have dinner at Ted's, Ted Turner's restaurant.  Excellent food and good wine.  Then it was back to the Silver Forest Inn for some hot tub time to ease aching muscles.   I'm not normally big on hot tubs but sitting in one on a deck watching the sunset behind the mountains - it was a wonderful way to end a great day!

© 2009 Tara Morrison