Vacation Day 7 – Bighorn Sheep

We set off today to the northeast part of Yellowstone in search of bighorn sheep.

We drove straight through Madison junction, Norris junction, and Canyon junction on our way north toward Tower. We were on a mission to find bighorn sheep, so we skipped out on all of the other attractions along the way and drove on to the Mt Washburn trailhead. We had been told the day before by one of the cashiers at a gift shop we stopped at by Lake Yellowstone that this was the best bet to find the rare bighorns.

The road up to the trail head was a fun dirt road with plenty of bumps and twists. The trailhead was a simple dirt parking lot but was still full of cars, trucks and RVs. The vast majority of the other visitors either took one look at the first hill and gave up, or made it to the top of the first hill and got no further. The trail started out at an incredibly steep grade for a quarter of a mile before easing up a bit. The breaks we got on this trail were all relative, however, because it was a long, relentless climb all the way to the summit with no level or downhill spots the entire way. The majority of the trail was actually a forest service road used to get supplies up to a watch tower on the summit, so at least it was wide enough to pass other hikers or for hikers going opposite directions to not interfere with each other.

We were well rewarded at the two mile point on the trail when we came across a pair of bighorn sheep lying right on the trail itself. As we got closer we could see that they were watching over a larger herd of sheep just below them on the hillside, including many kids. The sheep in the trail were not terribly concerned with hikers, and let many pass by within ten feet of them without even getting up.

We stayed and watched the sheep for several minutes until a forest service truck came driving up the road. That was enough to make the sheep move off the trail and farther down the hillside, so we decided to move on and continue to the summit.

On the summit was the watchtower, including a residence for the ranger currently assigned there. The lower part of the tower was open to hikers to come inside out of the wind and relax and enjoy the view. During the last quarter mile of the hike the wind had been increasing until just before we got in the tower we were in a 35mph wind with 40mph gusts. It was a huge relief to get into the watch tower and be able to relax and eat lunch. Several other groups of hikers were doing the same thing.

Before we left, I walked out onto the outdoor observation deck on the second level of the tower. By then the wind had increased, and I had to hold on to the railing to keep my balance. The winds were gusting over 50mph at that point, so we decided to head back down before it got even worse. The first 20 minutes of the hike down we were fighting the wind from multiple directions as the trail wound around and down the mountain. When we were walking into the wind, it was very difficult to even breath, and we had to struggle to make forward progress. When the wind was coming from the side, we were constantly working to keep our balance and not get blown to the side. Finally we got down low enough that the wind wasn’t as strong and we were able to walk and talk normally.

After an hour of hiking down we made it back to the parking lot, tired but exhilarated at both summiting the second highest peak in Yellowstone and seeing a herd of rare bighorn sheep. Since we accomplished our main goal of the day, we decided to head back to camp early to let Stacie get in a few extra hours of studying.