Mt. Hebgen Lake - West Yellowstone, Montana

Rating: 🥾🥾🥾🥾

 

9.2 miles, 2,076 feet elevation gain

You know you are in for a treat when you are hiking in bear country, you don't check the weather prior to the hike, the trail is lightly trafficked, and the reviews don't tell you the full story. Such is the saga of the Mount Hebgen Trail in Montana. Oh, and did I mention there may or may not have been a lightning storm? Minor detail. I wavered on what to give this hike. Three boots out of five, or four? In the end, I decided that the pros outweighed the cons. So, four boots out of five. 

When we started out on this hike, we saw a nice group of people who had hiked the trail before.  There was an older local who appeared to have hiked a lot. She told us to talk loud when we asked about bears. She also mentioned that she had never hiked the loop before. We later found that there were some significant reasons for this. 

We started up the trail, talking loudly, ready for an adventure. We saw bear scat, but we didn't feel major concern. As we hiked, storm clouds brewed over the lake. Leti asked me if I was concerned. I wasn't. Perhaps I should have been. We could hear thunder clapping, but again, it was over the lake, so we kept going. We had almost made it to what looked like a ridge or mountain top when the storm got closer to us. And, then we saw lightning. This is never what you want to see while hiking to a mountain top. So, we did what every unprepared hiker would do. We ran down the mountain, laid flat, and prayed! We waited out the storm in our rain gear, and forgot to take a picture. It was an intense few moments with some intense prayers. As we were laying on the hillside, Leti, ever vigilant of bears, would yell periodically, "We are still here!" At first, I thought she was saying that to Heavenly Father. She wasn't. She was just letting the bears know we were around, and they didn't need to come looking for us. Eventually the storm passed. We got our popsicle selves up, and headed to view the lake. I can't decide if this was an entirely inspired idea. 

A view of the trail. Here is the mountain side where we laid down and hoped we wouldn't be fried by lightning. 

Leti at the Lake Hebgen overlook. Note the storm in the background. It really is pretty when you aren't scared out of your mind. 

Here I am feeling a bit rattled after our hillside encounter with lightning. I am wearing my hood. There are reasons for this. The main one was when the photographer mentioned I should do something with my hair. I opted to hide it.  

After viewing the lake, (See map below. There is a little spot for that.) we checked the map and decided that a little spur trail we had seen earlier was the correct trail. So, we headed back down the mountain and took the spur trail. 

In the end, we learned that this trail was entirely useless. We literally walked in a big circle for about 30 minutes. Neat. We then tried to follow the loop up the mountain (again). We were on a trail for a bit, and then who knows what happened to the trail. It was literally no where to be found. For about two miles, there wasn't a trail at all. Whoever made this map got lost. Across from the green/black circled you can see that the loop is not quite circular. More jagged. That's because the person who made the map wasn't on a trail. They were just making it up. So, we followed their made up trail for a few miles using the cell phone. We were a blue dot, just walking along, hoping to connect to a trail again. Inasmuch as it had just rained, the non-trail we followed got us quite muddy. Here are my boots at the end of the trail, just to give you an idea of what this was like. 

The pants are technically gray. In this picture, they are more earth toned. Literally. 

Here I am following Leti. You will note that it is beautiful view. And, you will note that there is no trail. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Nil.

Hard to believe this picture was taken the same day of the thunder and lightning storm. It was. Just a few hours apart. I thought it was so beautiful. 

Finally, by following the map using the cell phone GPS, we connected with the real trail again! There may have been some cheering at this point. We hiked down in a little ravine between two mountain sides. The hike itself was really beautiful. We saw two lovely elk, who were not interested in making our acquaintance. It was the only time we were quiet during the hike. It was nice to be on a real trail again. We kept going and made it back to the car in pretty good time. Yay! On the drive out, we reviewed all of our follies, and we decided that we should be more prepared for our next hike. It proved to be a beautiful learning experience for all involved.