Ousel Falls
It was not as cold last night, though when we drove in to Big Sky this morning to go for our hike just about 8 am, it was cold enough that there was a lot of mist over the Gallatin River. We wanted to take the hike in to Ousel Falls, which is supposed to be an easy hike (and was, though it did go up and down quite a lot). However, we missed the turn into the parking area and drove much farther than we needed to. We first followed the main road, but it was obviously going in the wrong direction so we headed back, took Ousel Falls Road, which soon split off into Ousel Falls View Road, which we took. That didn’t look correct, so we backtracked, continued high up on Ousel Falls Road, and soon came to a dead end. We turned around once more, and saw that we had gone too far at the very first turn, and eventually located the falls hike parking lot.
Ouesel (Dipper)
From there we set off on a very well maintained trail. Not far down the trail was a sign saying “No Cross Country Skiing” and it was soon obvious why. The trail took hard switchback turns going down, and there was a sheer and unprotected drop-off over the side at the turns. If you didn’t make the turn, you’d be dead! We continued to drop down until we came to a bridge across the river. The river is obviously one of many branches that make up the Gallatin River, as it was labelled “South Fork of the West Fork of the Gallatin River”.
After climbing out of the river valley again we reached the falls, not long after passing a small falls called the South Fork Cascades. Ousel Falls are a very pretty falls. At this time of year they are not flowing very fast, so that it was easy to go to the base of the falls. At high water levels this would probably not be very easy. We then climbed to the top of the falls, and saw the bird for which the falls are named, an Ousel, or Water Dipper.
Gallatin River, along Highway 191
We returned to our campsite and packed up the trailer, then ate lunch. We left the campsite very close to noon, and drove to the town of West Yellowstone. The road follows the Gallatin River and it was a very scenic drive. The fall colors are just starting so the shrubs along the river were starting to turn yellow. We saw many fishermen along the way.
We got gas in West Yellowstone (the most expensive gas we’ve bought so far in the US) then travelled along the Madison River into the park. This is a part of the park that we haven’t seen before, and here too we saw many fishermen in the Madison River. The road crews were working setting up the snowplow flags along the side of the road, so that is exactly as it was last year when we were here. The roads were not too busy, but I did see on a sign near the entrance that almost all the campgrounds are full.
After we checked in to Grant Village Campground we went to the park office to ask about the best places to hike. The woman at the desk said, “well that’s a matter of opinion,” so I said to her,”Well I respect your opinion.” She then did tell us about five hikes that she thought were good. We hope to do more hiking here this year, since we have seen all the geyser sites. We do plan to go back to some of the better ones of those too.