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The first time Alisha and I went to the Yellowstone back-country office we were given a piece of information which really changed how we viewed the park from then on. We were told that less than one tenth of one percent (one out of every thousand) of the visitors ever leave the pre-marked boardwalk trails. In fact considering that from the parking lot to the boardwalk back to the car its possible most of them never actually set foot on the ground itself.

True, Yellowstone is a mecca for Americas adventurous soft serve licking crowds, True, you will see chub-a-lubby American potatoes practically begging the buffalo to gore them as they stick cameras in their shaggy faces and pose in order to have pictures to show for their wild expedition and sadly but true there are thousands of them and miles of cars and trendy Yellowstone national park merchandise. All that’s forgotten more or less as soon as you set foot on trail and head into the back-country.

In order to do anything over a 2 day hike you will need to fill out a form and pick 1st 2nd and 3rd choices for which spots you want to camp out. There’s a 20 dollar fee to reserve your camp sites. Visit the NPS Yellowstone back-country for more information.

For those interested I created a google map with pin marks if this trip.

Day 1 - Lone Star Geyser - Lower Geyser Basin

We started two miles south of Old Faithful. 3 miles in we ran into Lone Star Geyser which goes off every three hours. We were lucky enough to arrive just as it was doing its thing

An hour or two before sunset and 4 miles later we set up camp and then decided to tack on an additional 6 miles to see the lower geyser basin which isn’t too terribly different from a lot of the other geothermal activity in Yellowstone except for the complete lack of people and boardwalks which makes all the difference in the world.

The photo above is a valley near sunset en route to the geyser basin

I really enjoy the sort of textures that happen near geothermal activity. My highlight of the geyser basin were the twin fumaroles. It sounded like satan gargling asphalt. I tempted fate to see what was inside. (Can you imagine the headline on the news? At 11 - Local Idiot gets face blasted off by steam after sticking head in fumarole)

Day 2 Yellowstone Valley & 3 River Junction

The second day was around 11 miles or so. The first photo is some weird bacterial mat with air bubbles trapped in it that we found in a river. Ill probably use this for art at some point

Alisha befriended an amanita, which for the record… was already knocked over before we got there and not plucked so we could take a picture with it

The valley is pretty amazing. In the photo below you can see the Bechler River to the right but running along side it is a small stream made of the runoff from hot springs. The temperature in these streams was pretty hot I would guess 170 degrees.

Inside the stream were the strangest thermophiles Ive ever seen. If anyone know for sure what these are please contact me. My shot in the dark guess is that they are strands of thermophile bacterial growth. The slow hypnotic undulation of this hot water forest was the highlight of my day, but as you know I’m geeky like that.

A close second favorite spot of the day was Leather Pond. Large thick bacterial matts growing at the bottom of this small pond. My first thought was of large vats of kombucha and probably went as far as thinking “I wonder what it tastes like” before I shut that thought process down and headed towards our destination.

I have to recommend this camp site if you are in the area. I believe its Abigail Falls, but the campsite is amazing! Right on the base of this huge towering waterfall which we watched the sun set on. We started climbing it but to the left and right were some seriously spooky caves and rock pits which could have easily made dens for any number of large animals that we didn’t want to encounter.

Day 3 Downward to Bechler Meadows

By day three the hiking is taking a toll on us. We are beat. Its another 12-14 mile day and luckily its all downhill with a 3,000 foot elevation change, but with a 40 pound pack and several blisters that’s a small consolation

This was the day of the waterfalls it seems. Here’s Alisha all explored-out at the mornings first waterfall.

I snuck up behind a dragonfly and ended up a little confused. Can dragonflies hear? This one didn’t notice me in its peripheral vision or hear the sound of my shutters but as soon as I stepped into its field of vision it bolted. Click the image for some great wing detail

Not too much happened this day. Long arduous and we filled the space talking about food.

Day4 Union Falls and Beyond

So we wake up exhausted and sore. It seems we planned our trip poorly and didn’t forsee how beat we would be. This day is the biggest of our hikes. To make matters worse we didn’t get our first choice campground and the one we got was 5 miles further out of the way. This was close to a 16 mile day because we decided to check out union falls anyways which added another couple of miles to our plate. I’m glad we did because the rest of the hike was ummm how do I say this? oh yeah BORING!

There was nothing else picture worthy this day which dragged on forever. We stopped to eat once, took a small nap in a meadow and plowed on relentlessly. Time was killed and filled by us talking about what we wanted to eat most. The consensus was that a big fat calzone was the most mouthwatering thing we could think of. Our meals had been too scarce for the amount of energy we were expending and if we overate we would be out of food. Next time I’m bringing a calzone!

We came to the point where we departed from the trail we would follow the next day. Another 5 miles to Abuela Lake. So we went ahead and forded a river (which I wasnt looking forward too first thing in the morning) The way we ended up taking took us outside the park borders and we ended up at a construction site for some kind of rock quarry which was the visual equivelant of nails on a chalkboard. I really bummed me out actually.

Day 5 FORGET THAT!

We wake up an hour before sunrise once again BEAT to tackle the 18 mile day which is all uphill with a 3000 foot elevation change. We are five miles off the trail, have to pass that horrible construction site with its orange water and mountains of broken stones, then have to ford a freezing river with really sharp slate… and then walk 13 miles uphill? FORGET THAT! hell no. It was the quarry that was the deal breaker for me.

So we took our time this morning and watched the sunrise on the lake and I got some amazing photos of the full moon setting and the fog burning off the lake. Im starting with my favorite

So we walk five miles to the main rode and then hitchhike the 12 to our car which our friend had moved to the trail-head. We decided then to kinda sorta start working on our wedding reception which was in two days. (like how we roll? we are pros!) But before we left Yellowstone I wanted to stop at this Basalt column rock-face we found last year but I didn’t get any good pictures of because the light was poor. It was the same this time around and I’ve come to the conclusion that a picture couldn’t capture the sheer magnitude of it - Heres my failed attempt

Near Tower Junction you can see the some really amazing rock formations from a high vantage point. This is one of my favorite spots in Yellowstone.

And then we went home. Our next back-country hike will be a 100+ mile hike in Glacier National Park in the summer of 2008.

You can view the rest of the photos here

Tales from the Tour
I would write Tales from the Tour in dripping blood horror movie letters if
I could but Ive seemed to have forgotten the html code for it - what was it
again? backslash horror?

So yeah! Im back in San Francisco; first day of sleeping in my own bed and
relaxing. The tour was great! I’ve put most of the pictures online and
really trimmed back on all the unnecessary ones.

Im not going to bore you with a day by day recounting but just touch on some
of the moments that still make me smile and laugh

Our First gig was in Ashland on Thursday at the Mobius which as you can see
by this picture is a very nice little spot.

Small crowd and quaint little town. After that we headed back down to Mt.
Shasta to camp out for three days at Ancient Souls Festival with an armada
of friends.

We spent a lot of time chatting it up with Carson and Jamie who are the
cutest couple in the world - in fact, so infectiously cute you simply can’t
tolerate it and want to crush them just to make the cuteness stop. If you
dont understand this level of cuteness you’ve probably been spending too
much time in California and I will hereby refer you to pictures of baby
chicks and 9 week old kittens which you can study until you comprehend this
level of cuteness and end your daydreams of bashing me with your PETA signs.

My highlight at Ancient Souls was chilling with Michael around the campfire
all night until sunrise when the electric blue of the impending sunrise
sharply contrasted with the fiery oranges and reds reflecting off everyones
face as they huddled around the fire; creating this intensely tribal
atmosphere. Though the second most memorable moment was a dj who was playing
the most godawful house remixes of Genesis and Billy Idol - White Wedding in
these minute to two minute long epic trainwreck mixs. I hear at one point he
was trainwrecking the mix - complete shoes in the dryer/ galloping horse
style and stood back all proud and threw his hands up as if to say “look ma,
no hands”

horrible.

After Ancient Souls we drove towards Crater Lake, stopping in Klammath
Falls, which is the largest town Ive ever been to that was completely devoid
of corporate logos, chains, and mcdonalds… nothing. It looked like it was
frozen in time 20 years ago. We had to do some hunting in order to get our
fix of espresso and Mexican food (which we didnt eat right away)

Soon after, we arrived in Crated Lake, which is the deepest lake in the US
and one of the deepest in the world (which gives it this incredibly deep
blue color).

We climbed up on the rim and opened our lunch and realized that we were
having the best burrito of our life. The logic went a little like this.
kris: Wow. this place is really beautiful, definitely the most beautiful
place I’ve ever had a burrito.
jack: This is one of the better tasting burritos I’ve ever had too and it
was only 4.50!
kris: It would be next to impossible to top this burrito experience so this
has got to be the best burrito we will ever have in this life time.
heres a photo after “The Burrito Experience” tm

.
So thats it… Crater Lake was out of control beautiful this day to the
point where we were numbed by it… kind of like if you’ve ever been to
Bryce or seen the General Sherman sequoia tree (largest living thing on the
planet) and just shrugged because you’d been looking at immensely large
trees all day but then when you get home and see your pictures you are like
DAMN! that place is nice!
Heres a pile of pretty pictures taken this day

We headed out right away to drive through the Three Sisters Wilderness in
Oregon to get to our camp ground and Terwilliger Springs on Cougar Lake. We
got to the campground, set up, and decided that a late night dip in the hot
springs would help us sleep better, especially since we were so dirty we had
permanant trailing little clouds of dust behind us like Linus. We arrived at
the entrance to the hot springs and the sign was doing everything in its
meager authoritarian word power to convince us that we were supposed to
behave and be proper law abiding citizens and come back during normal hours
of operation - sunrise to sunset. After reading about the fines we decided
that any possible fine would be worth the experience (though we did make the
proper donation for our usage) and went ahead and hiked for 15 minutes to
the springs in total darkness though the forest.

When we arrived and dipped into the 104 degree pools all worries and
tensions melted away within 15 minutes which was good timing because thats
when the full moon broke the top of a large pine covered mountain and its
majestic face shone moonbeams through the steaming springs and bounced
rippling white light from the top of the dancing water to our faces. The
moon was visible for about 30 minutes until it hid behind another mountain
and we decided to get some sleep. (to my non-hippy friends - save your
comments about that being the worst hippy pagan poetry you’ve ever read or
else Ill have to send you some that will make mine look good)

First thing in the morning we went back to the springs for a daytime
experience, of course I thought at this point that last nights experience
was tops… but wouldn’t you know it… it got better the path to the
springs that was nothing but dark gliding shapes at night looked like an
enchanted forest in the daytime

with tons of mushroooms everywhere - Amanita Muscaria anyone?

Heres a shot of the hotsprings

Morning sunbeams shining through the mouth of the hotsprings

So we then headed up to Portland for a couple more gigs. Met tons of great
people and really explored this awesome town. Portland you get 4 stars from
me.
heres some randomness…

We went to the street fair that happens the last thursday of the month on
Alberta street. Saw tons of great art and even had a crowd rocking out to
some latin house spilling out into the street. I met the author of my
favorite zine… Ten Foot Rule and bought a little dollar zine off him that
was all about “Starting your own damn tour” - absolutely classic. Chatted
for awhile about why san fran sucks and why portland is cool.

here’s Jack playing like hes the shit. We got to cruise around town in this
bad boy… its simply too pimping for those of us who like to be the center
of attention without everyone noticing.

yep hippy haven.
alright… I thought Jack was pointing out this car and so I walked up to
check it out not even noticing the cat freaking out and hissing at us… but
yet he didnt move… just hissed and hissed. we had to actually orchestrate
the picture to get the cat to hiss just as we took the picture to really
capture the scene… what a little asshole.

Portland is probably the purest manifestation of the american dream ive seen
to date. If I ever decided I wanted to have kids and settle down it would be
in a place like this

We went up to Seattle for a few days and I found “the record” that rocked my
world at burningman, drank the worlds best lattes, and played at Oseao for a
cool mandala / visionary artwork gallery opening

I even got to play some sweet brazillian jazz, quiet nights for quiet stars.

after that we went to Portland, played at Ohm, and started our journey home
the next day.
Jack snagged a picture of me standing in front of Mt Shasta.

Meanwhile there was an epic sunset that started hours before the sun even
hid itself behind the mountains… rain clouds being torn asunder, shafts of
light breaking the cumulonimbus fluff and all kinds of color.

and onto the epic sunset on shasta which ended our tour properly

so there you have it. I went on tour and all i got were these stupid
pictures.
the rest of the pictures are here