Lollie's Trail and 2 Funny Stories

This trail is named for a lady (Lollie) who gave Yellowstone Association a bunch of money and they named the Overlook Trail for her. She claims she has never seen it or been on it. Too bad for Lolllie!

The scrubby, dark green bushes behind the sign are sage brush. 





It's difficult to see, but right in the middle of the picture is a rock formation in the shape of an arrow. Wonder which way the path goes??










We decided to hike Lollie's Trail to see if going at this trail from a different direction (it hooks up to Eagle Creek which is an earlier blog) would take us down to a large bridge we've been seeing from up above.

 Are you having trouble seeing the trail? So were we!





The views were wonderful even if the trail was half washed away. Notice the trail in the middle of this rock slide area. Is this suicidal or what?










The river is the Yellowstone. It is down about one foot from where it was in August when we were having all the rain.

The mountains in the background are the Absaroka Mountain Range. They continue north up to Bozeman, MT.




This area was rather testy. I found I couldn't look up or down, just straight ahead, thank you very much!

These rocks you skirt around like this one are so amazing. One small earthquake and all bets are off for this whole area.









This is looking west. The mountain in the background is Electric Peak. It is the highest or second to the highest peak in Yellowstone.We haven't been able to get that information straight :)

Ok, I have to pause here. So we made it down to the bridge, took pictures of each other on the bridge, hiked another 1/4 mile past the bridge and had a little lunch celebration with Cliff bars and (for me) celery sticks. So we know where the bridge is and now how to get there. Where are the pictures you might ask? Yes, well, we are too. They were apparently not transferred onto the computer before the camera card was deleted. So, I suppose that will be a longer hike next year, only we'll be starting from an easier point that we also discovered.

Walking back from the bridge, Bob left the path to see how far the water was from the rock outcropping. Too far to fish from it turns out. So I'm standing on the trail alone and I notice a guy walking briskly toward me holding a rather large double-sided ax. Um, ok. Do I jump off the trail down to Bob, warn him not to come up or scramble up the hill? Oops, too late, he's already to me and he's wearing a Ranger t-shirt. This explains a lot! I stopped him and asked him if he realized how intimidating he looked and we had a good laugh. By this time Bob is back up with me. This guy explains he is heading to a back-country camping area across the river and that if we run across a group with 'stock' we should get off the trail and let them pass. We said fine, he went on and we went on. Did I get a picture? Of course not.

Next, we came upon 2 female Rangers walking briskly carrying shovels. We thought, ok, the guy is a very fast walker and the girls were chatting and going a little slower. Whatever. We got halfway up the Eagle Creek Campground trail and Whoa! We jumped off this little bridge and watched the following come by:


Female Ranger leading the pack on a horse.











A guy that looks like a back-country outfitter on a horse leading 6 mules with these large packs on.

And a light dawned on us. The 3 rangers are walking ahead to clear any debris off the trail to make the passage easier for the horses and mules.






This is the end of the mules. One missed the bridge but quickly jumped up. It's just a boggy area so wasn't dangerous. The guy was simply holding a rope behind him as he rode and called to the mules. They were all tied to each other with a simple rope. Seriously!





Last was another ranger on a horse holding the rope for 5 more horses and/or mules.

We don't know what they plan to do at the campsite but it looks like they'll be down there for a few days. Fortunately, the weather was still drop-dead gorgeous!

We finished this hike deciding not to take Lollie's Trail next year to get to the bridge.

Total miles hiked: 126