I went out last week to celebrate my birthday, thinking I would be enjoying a hike along a canyon that promised a whopping 40 feet of elevation gain.
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| Trail to Flagg Canyon and…well, wherever we went. |
The plan was to hike five miles along the Flagg Canyon trail between Yellowstone and Grand Teton. Easy, we thought. Piece of (birthday) cake, we agreed.
Well, it would have gone as planned if we had found the right trail.
Oh, the sign indicated where we were supposed to go. Our only fault was that we missed the turn to the right and just kept on keeping on to the left.
Who knew?
We ended up in a meadow full of elephant heads, aka Pedicularis groenlandica (as it’s known to its closest friends).
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| Meadow bursting with elephant heads! |
Not a bad trade–off for being in the wrong place at the right time.
Thinking perhaps we could locate a short-cut to world famous Huckleberry hot springs, we started out across the meadow.
Squish Squish.
Bad idea. After a few steps it became clear that we would most likely be sinking up to our sunhats in a soggy bog full of lilac–hued wildflowers.
So we bid the meadow adieu and continued on the trail of the unknown destination.
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| Polecat Creek trail |
Actually we quickly figured out which trail we were on. We just weren’t completely sure how we got on it.
Lunch was a leisurely stop with the ducks along Polecat Creek.
The morning evolved into a totally idyllic birthday afternoon as we broke a new land–speed hiking record of 2.5 miles in around three hours.
