Bechler Meadows July 2011

At the end of July we went on my first serious backpacking trip!  We went with our good friends Jody and Julie Orme.  We met them up at Camp Loll the day before, and got things all ready.  I was very nervous about carrying much in my pack. I have little arms :)  But as mentioned before we did a couple of hikes carrying packs to get ready for it, so I was as prepared as I could be.  My pack probably only weighed about 25 pounds, so that wasn't too bad.  We had bought a backpacking tent and some really nice small light sleeping pads in preparation for this trip.  We were worried because the snow was really bad last summer, and only one other group from Camp had gotten into Bechler because of snow.  They got in the Monday before we went. 

Bechler Meadows is in Yellowstone.  It is a relatively flat trip, not a lot of ups and downs which was nice.  We hiked in about 7 miles to our campsite 9 B2 and then set up camp.  Julie and I were pretty nervous to see all the bear claw marks marking all the trees in and around our campsite, but we followed all the bear precaution rules, and had bear pepper spray just in case. 

After setting up camp, Justin led us up to Ouzel falls which wasn't really part of the main hike, but something we had wanted to see.  It was so beautiful!  It was huge!  It was definitely off the beaten path to get there, and I was trying to talk and make sounds the whole time to scare off any bears.  I just knew that any minute a bear would stand up out of hiding and eat us all.  I'm definitely my mother's daughter- worried and paranoid.  (No offense Mom, you know how we both are! :))  Round trip to Ouzel was about 9 miles (a lot of it bushwhacking)





Our view from 9B2





Once we made it back to camp that night, we made dinner.  It was Salmon and noodles, and some nut roll bars.  It was so amazing how hard it was to eat because once you stopped moving, the mosquitoes were everywhere! 

Okay to be honest most of us had been wearing mosquito nets the whole trip, and 100 % deet lotion or bug spray.  I had heard how bad it was, but really could not believe how bad it was.  I will never think that Camp Loll has tons of mosquitoes ever again because it is NOTHING compared to Bechler.  It was seriously like, move the net and take a bite, then put the net back.  Soooooo Baaaaad.  And we didn't need a fire (I'm not sure if we could have even if we wanted one.) so that didn't help.   After dinner we cleaned up, bear bagged all of our smellables and all got into our 2 man backpacking tent to play cards.  We played scum (after we had killed all the mosquitoes that had managed to get in while we were getting in).  It was really fun, but I think we were all ready to sleep that night!  After a couple of games Jody and Julie went back to their tent and we all went to bed.  I seriously woke up a million times thinking I heard a bear.  I know- Pathetic!

 Luckily at 9B2 we had a pit toilet not far off, so that was very convenient.  As much as I LOVE being outdoors and being in the wilderness I'm still not so good at the whole bathroom thing out in the woods.  Hey it's harder for girls!  The next day was the longest day.  We hiked up to Ferris Hot Springs.  We didn't have to hike with our full packs which was nice, but it was still almost a 20 mile day.  Well worth it though!  There were many waterfalls to see on the way up. 

We also saw some pretty good bear tracks.  :-/ 

It was so beautiful. There is nothing quite like being up in that type of country with some great friends and nature and that's it. We didn't even see another person until we were well on our way to Ferris. And it was a Park Ranger by himself. He was surprised we had made it across the river at 9B6. I was surprised too, Wow. It wasn't very deep, up to my waist at most, but it was swift and freezing! Justin and Jody helped Julie and I a LOT! Justin went and tested to see if we could make it, then they set us a hand line that we could hold onto to help. Justin and Jodi had to take our packs over for us, and Justin escorted us each over. (Yeah, Justin had to cross the freezing river like 8 or 9 times. My Hero!!)

 Ferris was awesome! We were so ready for a nice soak in warm water by the time we got up there. It was very PRISTINE ;)

The next morning we were up with the dawn, packing up and heading on out.  It was pretty unbearable to cross the freezing river that early, but we survived.  Barely!  The hike on out was beautiful as usual.  We saw our first real wildlife besides snakes, which we had seen earlier and mosquitos which we couldn't get away from.  Justin kept wanting to see a bear, but I was okay we didn't! 

All in all this was probably my favorite memory from 2011.  We had so much fun hanging out in the Wilderness with some of our best friends!  Thanks Jody and Julie!  We hope to have many more adventures together.  :)