Backpacking in Yellowstone

So, my wonderful mom and dad took all of the cousins for a week for a Cousin Camp at their house, which meant Russell and I had some time to do something exciting together.  And what is more exciting then a backpacking adventure to Yellowstone?!

 We didn't plan ahead by making reservations for back country permit, we just showed up at the Bechler Ranger station and hoped they had a spot for us. And they did! We did a 26 mile out and back to Union Falls.  Here I am at the trail head all fresh and excited.  About a mile into it I didn't look so fresh any more. It was hot! But the trail was pretty easy so that was good.

 We had to ford two rivers on our hike and I loved it. It cooled us down and it was an exciting element to the trip.  This is Rocky Ford that went across the Bechler River.

This River was pretty wide and the rocks were slippery.  I got wet up to my thighs and it felt wonderful. Do you think my back is big enough? Russell's was even bigger.

 Taking a little lunch break.  It was beautiful country.

Second ford over Ash Creek not as wide, but I still got pretty wet.  This river crossing was about a tenth of a mile from our camp. I was really happy to finally be done with our long day of hiking, 9 miles to our camp.

When we got our permit the ranger said, "oh your camp has a pit toilet by it" kind of excited like...this was the toilet.  Oh ya it was just out in the open with dead trees around it and that was it.  Needless to stay I did not use it. :)

The wildflowers were gorgeous.

The second day we made it to Union Falls after another 8 mile hike that day.  

 Union Falls was awesome.  We had lunch and enjoyed the view for quite a while.

 After the falls we took a little spur trail to Ouzel Pool.  It was so much fun to swim in.  The water was warm from a geyser up stream. This was my favorite part of the trip.

Here is Russell enjoying the water.  After a while the horseflies found us and started biting so that wasn't fun.

 After we got back to camp I suggested we go sit it the river for a while to cool off.  We were still in our swimsuits, but little did I know that Russell would take a dip fully clothed. We looked pretty funny.

Here is how Russell rolls, bug net and everything...

 And here I am! And I don't think I got that many bug bites.  The bugs were pretty bad up there.

Here was our camp with our little tent.  We did haul and ipad up there to watch movies at night and that was super fun.

We had to put our food up on a bear pole and we had to put our 300 yards away from our cooking and food area so we wouldn't attract bears.  We brought some bear spray and had a bear bell and luckily we did not see any bears.  We did see a bull moose, a couple of snakes and a chipmunks and that was it.  It was a long way to carry a pack, but it was worth it and Russell and I had the best time together. Thanks mom and dad!