Aero's Excellent Yellowstone Adventure

“Three of us Montana boys, Peter, Dan and I, made a three day trip into the Yellowstone backcountry last weekend. Although it is officially spring, winter is still in full force in the Park.

We first headed up to Cooke City for a night at the cabin. After fixing the flat tire and taking 3 Advil we were off. We headed off up the Lamar River trail on skis and full packs. Peter was experimenting with hauling the "sledge", which was actually a big game hunting sled. He went in on snow shoes which turned out to be much harder than skis as he was continually breaking through the crust. We saw a lot of coyotes, elk, bison but no wolves. We tried to get up to the Wahb Springs thermal area, but the snow conditions got so bad we had to turn back. The high temps caused the bottom to drop out of the snow and we were getting stuck slogging through deep snow and dead fall in the creek bottom.

For the most part it was a pretty good trip. We had the right gear for the conditions. We had to spend a lot of time melting snow for water and had enough fuel. The Whisperlight and the giant Phoebus worked well. The Pocket Rocket didn't function well in really cold temps.

Here's the pics!!
Yellowstone

Yellowstone II”

“Frozen Old Farts”

“That we were!”

“Looks like a real adventure, Aero! Thanks for sharing the pics!”

“wow, looks like fun! cool pictures...and i do mean that literally. ;-)”

“Thanks for the photos. The Bison shots were great.

Question. Were those ski-boots all metal? Never saw those before. Seems like they'd transfer heat to the ground pretty well.”

“tekapo-
No, they're old, leather, backcountry/telemark boots with a Vibram sole. And, yes, they were frozen solid in the mornings. The snow got really wet in the afternoon and we had trouble staying dry, although I should have sealed them again before we left. We debated on whether to bring in our pacs and as wet as the ski boots got, it was nice to put on dry boots in camp.”

“that nose-protector was pretty inventive! i got sunburned in the snow, too...who'd a thunk! ;-)”

“The dumb thing is that we talked about bringing sunscreen. I checked the medicine cabinet the morning we left the cabin and found some and still forgot it! Three rounds of Fat Tires in Cooke City didn't help.....”

“fat tires?

beat ya! i actually brought some with me, but neglected to put it on, d'oh!”

“Fat Tire ale...I think it's a Colorado brew (yum)

Alcohol; the cause of, and solution to, all life's problems.”

“ha! gives you a spare Tire, but saves you from all those unscrupulous people after you for your good looks! whew...”

“Way cool pictures.

8)

It did not look that cold!”

“Looks like a fun trip! Thanks for the photos!”

“You guys are lucky to live near such a nice place!

I suppose if'n ya got snowed in you could always eat buffalo!

Good ale, huh?”

“They could have fried up some bull nuts, ya?”

“Hey chief!
I wouldn't want to be the one who has to wrestle one down and brand him!
We had a great trip in there. As you know it was pretty warm that weekend! Cooke City was loaded with snowmobilers. We stopped into the Miner Bar and Cafe for pizza and Fat Tires the night before. It was hilarious; we walk in wearing wool pants and stocking caps and everybody else had on their big, performance snowmobile racing jackets.

Can't wait til summer up there! i'll see if I can acquire some Rocky Mountain Oysters for the Montanapalooza pre-hike barbeque! I can get Bison burgers, though!”

“What with all those Fat Tires your'ns must made a bit of yellow snow.”

“Aero, thanks for the pics -- good to see the camping shots as well as the scenics.

With the PocketRocket, noticed in the one pic that its fuel canister was nestled in the snow, which had to cool the fuel. A suggestion that has been made on a stove thread was to carry an old mouse pad as a simple, flat insulating layer under isopro canisters, as well as sitting the canister in a pot of water to keep the fuel temp up and and flowing.”

“Yeah, I learned that real quick. I've heard of the pan of water trick. It really didn't perform well unless i put it on a piece of wood- something to insulate it from the cold. The mouse pad idea sounds good. Even when I did insulate it from the ground it frosted up on the outside, but it was good for a quick boil. The white gas stoves really did the best, and since we had to melt a lot of snow for water we went through a lot of fuel. We had trouble getting to open water for us to use the water filter and just fill up a bag, so we had to use snow. (White snow, Tom!)”

“One thing you have to remember if you're melting snow for water; put some water in the pot first so you start with a little slush. Dry snow will cause the bottom of the pan to burn and the snow just kind of steams away (sublimates) and goes from solid to vapor. You need a little starter water so we left a half inch or so in the bottom of the boiling pot each time we filled a bottle.”

“In the age before filters, we had to boil all our drinking water at Isle Royale (moose tapeworm cysts require a long boil to kill), so we carried two original Peak 1 stoves with extra fuel for the week. Having two stoves sure speeds up the effort, and white gas stoves do shine for such intensive uses.”

“wow....really good pictures of the trip and gear and snow backpacking....
is xcskiing more strenuous than hiking? or is gliding easier?
what with Tekapo and his glissading and this trip report, y'all sure do make snow camping look like not such a bad thing...:)

looking forward to a greener more flowery landscape and meeting the inventor of such an interesting and functional nose guard at montanapalooza....”

“OM- It was fun. We all agreed we'd brought the right gear, clothes, etc. (This time!) Backcountry skiing is strenuous if the snow conditions are bad- generally too wet. Plus the packs were raelly loaded and it's tricky to balance. When we went in early, the snow was hard and we got good kick and glide and could really cruise- much faster than hiking. We were probably doing about 7-8 min./mile, but we stopped often to look around! The temp was about 20 degrees. By afternoon it was in the 40's and the bottom dropped out of the snow so we slogged up to our knees.”

“Hey aero! I love the pop tart nose guard! You should get a patent for that you know? Someone might come and steal your idea!

Great pics! I love the pics of all the little things dealing with snow camping. It made me feel like I was there! Can't wait for my next snowcamping trip in another week in a half!

Was that a case of Miller Genuine Draft in the back of the truck? My kind of guys!

I agree with you about putting something on the bottom of the stove to prevent the gas from getting too cold. I found a nice flat piece of bark that worked perfectly the last time I went.

Other than the flat tires, it looked like a fun trip. Thanks for sharing your story and pics!”