Sheep Creek West Yellowstone Ride Report

Apparently mother nature decided to switch things up a little and dealt us a wet/cold spring/summer and has treated us to a little bit of an Indian Summer in the last 2-3 weeks.  I won't complain since we have been trying to take full advantage of the unusually warm weather here in Montana.

The missus' was buried in conferences most of the weekend so that meant I had a Hall Pass to get out...The plan for the weekend was to head down to Lionhead mountain which is just on the west side of Yellowstone and get a couple of rides in while the weather was cooperating and the trails are still open to bikers before the pending decision by our 'elected' officials to shut just about everything down to us under the guise of designating areas as Wilderness.

Saturday's objective was Sheep Creek Trail to Sheep Lake.  It is an out and back trail and it is pretty steep - requires constant pedaling and being on your game to clear long steep technical sections.  Good stuff!
The ride profile looked like:

It was over 3,000 ft of vertical gain in about 6 miles...Game On!  The views were tremendous and unfortunately I missed the peak fall foliage changing as most of the wildflowers, birch, and aspens were just past their peaking.  It was still an amazing ride with incredible vistas.  There multiple stream crossings where you had the option to use the bridge or the stream (depending on how deep it was I would sometimes option for the bridge.  Fortunately the bridges were nice and wide so you did not have to worry too much about falling off them as you rode across:

You worked your way up through the drainage climbing climbing climbing...In the distance you could see some limestone crags up high.

There was a mix of different stone all over the place...chunks of granite ins some spots, with limestone cliffs in other spots.  At the top of the trail you were treated to a beautiful alpine lake.  I was surprised at just how big the lake was...but probably not quite as surprised as the crew that was up there via horses.  They looked at me like some sort of alien and were in dis-belief of why people would make a conscious and sober decision to go through the turmoil of riding up the trail...for the rest of us who do this for fun, it is a no brainer when you come up on scenes like this:

The descent was SO much fun!  It was fast & technical in some spots.  You had to stop every once in a while just to take the views in.

Fortunately there were a handful of people, horses, and bikes on the trails that day so I did not feel the need to talk to the bears as I rode.  It is grizzly country and I had my bear spray but I really do wonder how effective bear spray would be in some situations...given that it is usually windy and so if you were to try to use the spray, the wind might just blow right back in your face....or more importantly would you have the wherewithal to stand and wait for a charging bear to come within 10-15 ft before applying the spray.  Fortunately there was no need to answer any of those questions as the grizz let me be...

After the ride, I headed over to Hebgen Lake and grabbed a burger at the Happy Hour Bar - I was tempted to take a pic or two of the inside since there were hundreds (maybe thousands) of polaroids of customers doing anything flashing various parts of the bodies (and I do mean ALL parts) to a great collection of dusty hats hanging...this place definitely had a lot of character.
On the way to Hebgen, you pass a lake called Earthquake Lake (pic below).  This lake was created by the earthquake that hit the area in the late 50's.  I had never stopped to take a look and inform myself of the details until this trip.  I had some extra time so it was nice to be able to stop and read a little about the events that transpired...long story short is that there was an earthquake, the side of a mountain collapsed which created a huge landslide that displaced boulders the size of houses on the opposite side of the canyon several hundred feet up!  You can still see a huge scar on the side of the mountain where everything gave way.  One of the impacts of the quake was a new lake formed.  As you can tell from the picture, you can tell it was fairly recent based on all the dead trees sticking up.  It is amazing to think of the magnitude of some of these events and how we are just mere blips in the grand scheme of things.

Saturday was just a prep ride for the bigger ride planned on Sunday.  More to come....