HELLSCAPE
I
woke to the smell of smoke. Uh oh.
I was hoping to make it through the trip without wildfire smoke
intruding on the scenery, but it was bound to find me eventually. The smoke had moved in overnight and sunk
into the valley. I wasn’t sure where it was
coming from – there could be a fire nearby, or it could have drifted in from
hundreds of miles away.
I
emerged from the tent later than normal, as the cliff on the east side of the valley
blocked the early sun. The persistent
shade and the nearby river made for an unusually cold morning. I was moving slowly, hoping that the sun
would crest the cliffs above before I had to wade the icy river. It eventually appeared, but it didn’t make wading the river more pleasant.
I
waded the river three times in the first couple of
miles. Immediately after the 3rd
crossing I arrived at an obscure, unmarked
junction. The main trail continues
downstream along the North Fork Buffalo.
To the right is a surprisingly prominent trail heading up a tributary
valley. This trail isn’t shown on any
map that I’ve seen. I’m guessing that it
is either an old, abandoned trail or one of the many unofficial trails created
by horsepackers.
Back
in 2022 I had wandered up this trail in error, not realizing that the main
trail fords the river to continue upstream along the North Fork Buffalo. Fortunately I had realized my error quickly. After my trip I did a little research and
found that the trail goes to Tri County Lake.
That was of interest, as Tri County Lake was pretty
high on my list of places that I wanted to visit. The valley that it passes through was of
interest, too, as the topo map suggests a number of
waterfalls in the drainage. The creek actually has two forks.
One begins near the Continental Divide and starts out running roughly
parallel to the North Fork Buffalo. The
other fork drains Tri County Lake. It
looked like both forks and the combined stream would have waterfalls.
My
goal was to see as many waterfalls as possible while finding my way to Tri
County Lake. I wasn’t sure of the exact
route to the lake, but there was only one possible route that looked plausible
for horse traffic.
The
trail started off great, but that ended when the trail entered burned forest. It was
a mess of deadfall from that point on.
The trail braided frequently where different groups had taken varying
routes to get around the obstacles. Guessing at the best possible route was difficult. I employed the strategy of following the
freshest horse poop. I figured that if
anyone knew where they were going, it was the horses. And if a horse could get through, I should be
able to.
I
found a rare piece of trash along this stretch.
It was a fishing license that had either been discarded or dropped by
mistake. It had been purchased on July
19th in Moose, Wyoming, so I knew that someone had been up this
valley in the last few days.
I
passed a couple of tributary waterfalls along here, but they weren’t very
scenic due to the burned forest. I
reached a cliff a few minutes later with a decent view down the valley. It would have been a great view without the
burned forest. I had lunch there before
resuming the hike.
DO GO CHASING
WATERFALLS
The
next stretch of trail was hard to follow. Eventually it completely disappeared. I did find huge patches of wildflowers
though. Before long I gave up on regaining the trail
and headed down towards the creek. The
first likely waterfall was just downstream from the confluence of the two
forks, and I didn’t want to miss it. As
expected, there is a really nice waterfall there. I got a view of it from a cliff above the
creek. A closer view from the base would
have been nice, but I didn’t see a safe route down from my vantage point. I probably could have reached the creek
farther downstream, but I knew that I had a full afternoon ahead of me.
I
climbed back up the slope to get around the waterfall before heading back down
towards the confluence of the two forks.
Just above the confluence I found a small but pretty waterfall on the
fork coming from Tri County Lake. There
are some big cascades on the other fork, but they aren’t particularly
scenic. I thought about going up the Tri
County Lake fork, but it looked like there should be a waterfall a short
distance upstream on the other stream.
I
headed that way and pushed through some bushes to reach the creek. I looked upstream, and I couldn’t believe my
eyes. There was a waterfall as
expected. The surprising part was the
natural bridge in front of it! I wasn’t
expecting that! I went a little crazy,
taking photos and videos and exploring up to the base of the bridge.
I
wonder how many people have seen this waterfall? The unofficial trail is over a hundred
vertical feet above, and it is mostly traveled by horseback riders. How many of them have bushwhacked down here
to fish or look for waterfalls?
From
there I backtracked to the Tri County Lake fork and headed upstream. I quickly found another waterfall a short
distance above the one I’d passed earlier.
Above that was a run of 3 larger waterfalls. I climbed above the first, and stumbled on
the trail, which crosses the stream at the base of another one. From there I continued up, quickly reaching a
third waterfall. I kept climbing, and arrived at a narrow canyon with more
waterfalls. It looked like there might
be even more farther up the canyon, but I didn’t see a
reasonable way to scramble up there.
I
backtracked to the trail and followed it up the valley to the east, away from
the fork draining Tri County Lake. A few
minutes later a triple waterfall came into view. These waterfalls aren’t far upstream from the
waterfall with the natural bridge. These
waterfalls are really nice, but the sun was out and
the light was terrible for photography.
I
explored each of them before returning to the trail. The path took me by one more waterfall before
reaching treeline, where the trail disappeared in a
meadow. At that point I had a decision
to make. It looked like there might be a
couple more small waterfalls farther up the drainage. However, the most plausible route to Tri
County Lake would require climbing northeast, away from the creek, to get above
some cliffs. Once past
the cliffs, the optimal route would head north.
I
headed that way, but dark clouds were building behind me. It looked like a storm was imminent. Camping at Tri County Lake would probably be
safe since it is down in a basin, but it is still above treeline and very
exposed. The rest of the hike there
would be exposed, too. As luck would
have it, I spotted a possible place to camp in a small clump of fir trees just
ahead of me. It wasn’t a great spot, but
there was room for one small tent in a place that was almost flat.
I
was tired from a long day of exploring, so I decided to stop there. I got the tent up quickly, but the storms
passed. Later, another wave of storms
threatened, but they passed, too.
After
setting up camp I went hunting for water, as I didn’t want to go all the way
back down to the main creek. I found a
good water source in a minor gully right after I stumbled upon the trail. It was heading towards Tri County Lake,
exactly where I expected it. I made a
note of its location before heading back to camp.
I
had lentil curry for dinner that night, for the second time on the trip. This time it didn’t agree with me. In fact, you could say that it went straight
through. That was surprising – I’d never
had that problem with any of our dehydrated meals before. Fortunately that was
the only night that I had a problem.
Unfortunately,
that wasn’t my only issue. Early in the trip my shoulder straps started rubbing me raw. It was odd, since I’ve had this pack for
years and I never had a problem with its fit. The issue got worse as the trip went on. I think it was because I was losing weight and my hip belt was maxed out. That kept me from tightening it more and
taking more of the weight off of my shoulders. For some reason I had just been ignoring it,
but the chaffing just got worse. I
finally decided to try to do something about it. I tried moleskin and bandaids. Both helped some, but none of those options
would stay on for very long because of the sweat.
I
went to sleep that night looking forward to reaching Tri County Lake the next
morning.
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