Earlier this year, some of my colleagues and I decided to try and do a hike a week all summer. Although steady rain and thunderstorms during May and early June tried to disrupt our schedule, we only have missed one weekend so far.
Yellowstone opens in May, but because of the elevation and bear activity, many hikes in the park don't open until mid-June or later, so we decided to start closer to Cody, with Heart Mountain, just north of Cody.
Brenda Williams, the West Park Hospital Foundation director, Ingrid and I did this hike.
Heart Mountain dominates the landscape north of Cody and is identified on maps from Lewis and Clark's expedition.
Although it's only 8,123 feet tall, it has a
prominence of 2,163 feet, almost all of which must be climbed in order to reach the summit.
It also is a significant formation to geologists, who disagree about why the limestone cap of the mountain is much older than the base on which it sits.
During World War II, the eastern flanks of the mountain also served as the location of a
Japanese internment camp. Although a smokestack and the shells of a couple of buildings are all that remain of the camp today, there is an
effort to turn it into a memorial and interpretive center.
The
Nature Conservancy has bought the land and keeps it open for hikers and equestrians.
The hike is about four miles each way, with an elevation gain of more than 2,000 feet. To complicate matters, there were still snowfields across the path and muddy spots in mid-May. It took us about eight hours total with frequent stops and a short lunch at the top.
The beginning starts on a double track that crosses a sagebrush plain. In this section, horses are allowed. About halfway up, the terrain changes to a lodgepole pine forest pierced by a single footpath, for hikers only.
The hike winds its way around the all faces of the mountain, and from various places on the trail you can see the Bighorn Mountains, the Absarokas, the Beartooths and even as far away as the Washakie Needles, about 80 miles south. Although the day we climbed was quite hazy, you could still see all the mountain ranges, it just wasn't ideal for taking photos of faraway mountains.
Although it was quite a bit more strenuous than I expected and rather difficult for the first hike of the season, subsequent hikes have seemed mild by comparison; "It's no Heart Mountain" has become a common refrain on other hikes this summer.
In the end, it's nice to be able to see the mountain from town and know that we made it to the top.