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| View up Hyalite Canyon |
Today the plan was to hike the Hyalite Canyon Trail. It is located all the way at the end of the
Canyon where we happen to be camping.
Last year TH ‘discovered’ this place and we did a very small portion of
the hike. We also hiked out to the first
waterfall called the Grotto over our winter trip to Bozeman numerous times in the snow.
We had recovered from our last hike out
to Emerald Lake so we decided we’d shoot for Hyalite Lake…5 ½ miles out and
back. ELEVEN freaking miles? We must be nuts, but the elevation climb
‘wasn’t as bad’ as Emerald…or so we thought.
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Grotto Falls
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Since we’d seen the Grotto Falls last summer we decided to bypass
it…except we ended up going to it anyway.
The trail headed down towards the creek and before we realized
it we were at the Grotto. Coop made new
friends playing with two Aussies…he even won the battle of the stick a couple
of times. Poor thing still has no clue
what to do with it once he gets it.
We had to
climb back up to the trail to continue on our way…remember one of us HATES
uphill climbs.
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Cooper, Honey & a stick
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In comparison to the Emerald hike this trail was quite a bit
more interesting…much more lush, wildflowers everywhere and actually followed
along Hyalite Creek (or is it river?).
The trail went up into a horseshoe shaped canyon which is surrounded by steep cliff walls. At the top are two peaks...Hyalite and Findley.
Along the way were a number of water falls (11)…some right alongside and
others you had to hike a side trail. We
chose to bypass the side trails. As it
turned out that was a good idea...did we mention that it was an eleven mile
hike without the side trails?
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| Arch Falls |
The next falls that we came upon was named Arch Fall. An actual arch over the creek which was difficult
to photograph well without falling off the cliff. It was about this time that Cooper decided to
run off with the big black lab running down the trail with his owners...who
were running downhill too. He
lost his off leash privileges…although he was hightailing it back up the trail
when he thought he’d ‘lost us’.
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| Hightailing it back |
We kept heading up in elevation (an increase of 2000 feet by the time we reached the lake) and the views back out over
the canyon were impressive the higher we climbed. All the waterfalls still had a good bit of
water flowing…lots of Spring/Summer rains along with the snow melt have been good for the area.
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| Apex Falls |
The most impressive one was called Apex…a
series of drops down the mountainside and two log bridge crossings of the fall gave
us great views. Chasm and Shower
Falls were striking as well…lots of flowers along both creek banks.
We finally arrived at Hyalite Lake…what a
hike. This time we were able to stop and
catch our breath for a few minutes. The
flies left us alone once we sprayed ourselves down with OFF…not thrilling, but it
beat the pestering nuisances biting us.
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