Sepulcher Mountain - 3rd (and I promise, last) Part

This is a good view of the two mountain ranges. I suppose they have different names because they are not joined. So again, the one on the far right of the valley is the Absaroka Range and the left one is the Gallatin Range.

 One more look at the view before getting below the ridge line.











The climb down the mountain was through some dense woods for a large amount of the time.













And as we approached this area, we heard a guy just shouting out loud, as he walked. Right as we got to the woods he and a girl appeared, very relieved to be free of the woods. They said there was a very fresh pile of bear scat right on the path, and another further down.

So while we were in the wooded areas, we carried our bear spray in our hands and shouted as we walked. Never saw a bear, thank you Lord!, but we came across the scat. He was right on...very fresh!













Part of the back trail looks just like the front however, this had a lot of steep descents and the paths were very rocky, so we had to step carefully and go slow.

 

Can you see how dark it is in the woods? We could too. We walked faster when possible. We were still 3 miles away from the end at this spot.

This was a surprise junction. We came across this bridge and there was a confusing sign. We interpreted it correctly though and were able to stay on the trail. We had 2.5 miles to go at this point.









And this was a surprise lake we had to hike around. The beauty was nice but we were much more focused on the time. We did stop long enough to look for critters, but saw none.







Finally, the sign we had been waiting to get to. Wait, what? It's still 1 mile to Snow Pass? After that it's 1 more mile back to the truck. Hmmm.

But we persisted and made it. This sign is the beginning of the Snow Pass trail on the back side of the Hoodoo's trail.



And at full dusk, we made it to the truck. Our main worry was not the dark, in and of itself, we carry head lamps with us for emergencies.



But dusk is when all the night animals really make themselves known. And running into bears, wolves, mountain lions, coyotes, even foxes is not something we are really looking to do!

 And to clarify about this mountain...Sepulcher is 9,646 feet high. Electric is 10,969 feet high and Washburn mountain is 10,243 feet high.

 We hiked 3,300' in elevation change of Sepulcher for this hike.

And here is what Sepulcher looks like from our cabin. The highest peak in the middle is where we were! Due to smoke from the fires the pictures are not as pretty and clear as what we thought we were looking at, but you get a feel for what we saw.

So there you have the full splendor of Sepulcher Mountain. We hope to do it again next year but go another way, leave much earlier and spend more time on the top.