Backpacking Yellowstone National Park – A Heart Lake Loop Preamble

In a bygone era, Kentucky was ‘the west,’ a frontier on the backside of the first known mountains Europeans encountered when they slammed their boats into the eastern shore of North America and began their conquest westward. The Appalachian Mountains stood as the first defense Mother Nature would truly throw their way, the river valleys and hunting grounds ingrained in the culture of the native peoples unknown to all but the most daring – and often reckless – of the white men who dared access them.

I’ve got Boone blood in my veins, and am reminded of that quite often. Of course, in the three centuries since that Daniel’s birth, the continent’s conquest (and ones that have played out on five more across the globe) have rendered the word ‘frontier’ into an almost microscopic focus.

There are not many left. As a native Kentuckian who now resides in a city that was quite literally founded on stolen native land at the base of the Rocky Mountains so white folks could set up shop – nay, profit – off the upward human avalanche headed off to search for gold, it’s often hard to even see Colorado as much of a frontier anymore. The five-plus million folks who call the Front Range Urban Corridor home do so because they get to live as close as they can to these gigantic peaks that flank us, and I – like the rest of us – appreciate that accessibility as often as I get the chance. That said, we collectively inundate it at every last chance we get, and sometimes trips you anticipate being as remote as you can get in the state end up giving you the chance to high-five group after group who are out in search of the same wonderful spots as you.

It’s a blessing and a curse, truly, though thankfully the Wilderness Act of 1964 has set aside a good bit of land that, hopefully, will provide my generation and those that come after me the chance to still see some of the more beautiful areas this particular state has to offer.

Wyoming, Colorado’s square-shaped hat, is an entity entirely different. With a state population roughly in-line with that of Colorado Springs and Pueblo combined, it’s much more the closest frontier to us in Denver than the rest of Colorado itself. It’s the small room in the back of the video rental store that has all the real movies – the scary shit, the stuff that’ll make you pass out when you see it for the first time, the stuff that is hard to bring up in discussion because so few other folks have seen it to know what you mean.

Yellowstone National Park is the perfect little paradox up there, however. Nearly 5 million folks visit it annually – nearly the exact same population of that Front Range Urban Corridor in Colorado – and is a name-brand entity. Everyone has heard of Yellowstone, and tons of you have been. You’ve seen Old Faithful! You saw bison! You realized why ol’ U.S. Grant declared it the first National Park, and why Teddy Roosevelt tried like hell to protect anything he came across in its image.

I’ve seen Old Faithful! I’ve seen bison! I’ve seen why Ulysses and Teddy made those calls! In a word, what you see there is inimitable.

To expound upon that paradox statement earlier, however, Yellowstone somehow manages to hide in plain sight.

Despite the hoards that go there, drive its few roads, walk its boardwalks along hot pools, and dine in its lodges, so much about what truly is Yellowstone is what you don’t see. It’s what you’re not supposed to see, unless you seek it, and even if you seek it, there’s a built-in Yellowstone Defense System (YDS) to swat you away in most attempts.

At nearly 2.2 million acres, Yellowstone is bigger than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware combined, as History.com relays. And while Rhode Island and Delaware are far from far-reaching universes, they are decidedly more massive than the Old Faithful geyser hole and, even, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Point is, while the big features in paintings and photos dominate the views of the visitors, the overwhelming majority of what Yellowstone has within its bounds is inaccessible to those who care only to stay behind the wheel or in passenger seats.

To see the best of what Yellowstone has to offer – which is, in part, to not see any other people – you’ve got to lace up your boots and hit the trail. Even when you make the conscious decision to do that, you’re immediately hit with that YDS, as the permit system for backcountry access limits the overall number of backpackers in the park to just dozens at any given moment.

I’m one of the fortunate jerks who landed a permit this year, and in late August, I get the opportunity to step off the paved viewpoints of the park and into the backcountry, doing so on a trip with a trio of my oldest friends on a trip that’ll take us through a nearly 60 mile tour of what cars don’t show you. It’ll take us through, and up, and through, and around, and through the Snake River as we head north from the South Entrance towards Heart Lake. It will take us around Heart Lake to the base of Mount Sheridan, whose 10,000+ foot top we plan to summit. It’ll take us down, and through, and across, and through the Heart River as we exit back towards the Snake, where we’ll once again get to go through, and across, and through the Snake back to our exit point.

– Mount Sheridan

That, of course, is if the YDS smiles upon us enough to let it happen. Yellowstone, as it is said, always has something up its sleeve to throw at you. Whether it’s snow still on the ground, snow falling from the sky, lightning and thunder and torrential rain, swollen rivers that block your path, grizzly bears, bison, mountain lions, moose, testosterone-fueled elk ruts, bugs, bugs, oh god the bugs, fire, cold, heat, or your own body succumbing to the bulk of it, there will be roadblocks like hurdles at every step of the way.

If, though, the Park Gods oblige, we’re set to spend a week traversing through some of the most remote wilderness still within this continent, this country of ours. And perhaps more so than any trip on which I’ve ever planned or executed, the journey in this one will truly be the crown jewel of the trip, not the destination – even though the destinations will be magnificent in their own right. It’ll be the solitude, the sense of place you get when you’re just a tiny lump of human flesh surrounded by millions of acres of not-lumps-of-human-flesh, with your life on your back and your feet your only motor in and out.

Maybe it’s the old Kentucky in me that fuels the search west. Whatever it is, it’s got my heart racing just thinking of it, and I’ll be knee-deep in it in just four weeks.