pudgy_groundhog
Active member
This August we made our third annual trip to Cooke City, MT to rendezvous with my parents. Cooke City is nestled in the Beartooth Mtns near the MT/WY border, five miles from the northeast entrance of Yellowstone. It's a perfect base for fishing, hiking, exploring Yellowstone, wildlife watching, scenic drives, and enjoying the impressive display of wildflowers. The only drawback this year was the insane amount of mosquitoes (huge snowpack this year and a late melt, unfortunately the mosquitoes were behind schedule).
All the pictures are posted here and I wanted to share a few favorites.
On our way from Billings to Cooke City we stopped to hike Bald Peak in the Shoshone National Forest (off of the Chief Joseph scenic highway, not too far from Cody). No trail - just made our way along the ridge line. It's a gradual slope - estimated 1200 feet elevation in 1.5 to 2.0 miles (varies depending on where you park - we drove on the forest road until it felt too risky to keep going with the rental car). While our approach was an easy slope, the other sides are four thousand foot cliffs into the Clark's Fork Canyon. A picture of Steve near the summit and the interesting landscape showing remains of a forest fire:
Steve did an overnight trip to Aero Lakes to attempt a few peaks. While we knew snowpack was higher than normal this year, he was still surprised to see just how much snow was up there. Below is a picture from the same area last year when we backpacked there:
While the late snow melt was bad for mosquitoes, it was great for wildflowers. These were taken on Lulu Pass Road, just outside of Cooke City:
A highlight was Norah's first fishing trip. She was very excited to fish and Grandpa felt the pressure of delivering some fish. Norah was decked out in her little waders and princess life jacket and got to reel in six trout (including a "monster rainbow" as she was telling everybody who would listen). This picture is from fishing in Long Lake, right off of the Beartooth Highway:
Thanks for looking! I have additional pictures to post from Yellowstone and the Wind River Range. It was a fantastic trip!
All the pictures are posted here and I wanted to share a few favorites.
On our way from Billings to Cooke City we stopped to hike Bald Peak in the Shoshone National Forest (off of the Chief Joseph scenic highway, not too far from Cody). No trail - just made our way along the ridge line. It's a gradual slope - estimated 1200 feet elevation in 1.5 to 2.0 miles (varies depending on where you park - we drove on the forest road until it felt too risky to keep going with the rental car). While our approach was an easy slope, the other sides are four thousand foot cliffs into the Clark's Fork Canyon. A picture of Steve near the summit and the interesting landscape showing remains of a forest fire:
Steve did an overnight trip to Aero Lakes to attempt a few peaks. While we knew snowpack was higher than normal this year, he was still surprised to see just how much snow was up there. Below is a picture from the same area last year when we backpacked there:
While the late snow melt was bad for mosquitoes, it was great for wildflowers. These were taken on Lulu Pass Road, just outside of Cooke City:
A highlight was Norah's first fishing trip. She was very excited to fish and Grandpa felt the pressure of delivering some fish. Norah was decked out in her little waders and princess life jacket and got to reel in six trout (including a "monster rainbow" as she was telling everybody who would listen). This picture is from fishing in Long Lake, right off of the Beartooth Highway:
Thanks for looking! I have additional pictures to post from Yellowstone and the Wind River Range. It was a fantastic trip!
