Trail: Storm Point
Date: July 19, 2008
Distance: 2.1 miles
Time: about 1 hour
Elevation: none to speak of
Bison hair: LOTS
This was my most favorite trail so far! On the way there, we ran into a huge herd of bison (hundreds of them.) This caused the traffic jam to end all traffic jams, so it took us over 2 hours to drive the 58 miles to the trailhead. Then, we got sidetracked by a 90% off art sale at the Fishing Bridge gift shop (but that was a good thing.) Finally, we arrived at the trailhead, quite near Yellowstone Lake.
The trail starts in a meadow and quickly winds into the woods, where the blue-green lake becomes visible. The lake is so huge that it reminded me of the ocean. While walking through this wooded area, we came upon an area where a bison had laid down and shed all over the place. Score! I filled up a sandwich bag with fur... but I not really sure what to do with it. It's dirty, and obviously needs to be carded and spun - so we'll see. But I was excited just to have it. (Techinically its illegal to remove anything from a National Park... but also technically, it still has not left the park... just moved.)
Soon the trail open up, and you head towards a beautiful rocky point, where you can stand and feel the strong wind coming off the lake. It was so quiet here (besides the wind), and so scenic, and deserted... hard to imagine it's only a few minutes off the road.
After walking along the lake shore, you head back into the woods for a loop back to the road. It's hard to imagine bison walking through these woods, because they are so incredibly dense. There are fallen trees covering the ground, making it impossible to walk any where besides the trail (so it's impossible to get lost... a plus as always.) We did see a fallen tree, hanging about 7.5 feet above the trail, covered in bison fur! I was imagining a giant hairy beast prowling the woods, but then we realized that the fur deposition had probably happened during the winter, when snow weighed the tree down. However, if any one has seen a 7 foot tall bison, let me know... because that would be awesome.
This trail was fairly short, so we did another trail this day, Elephant Back Mountain... details to come.
