Article Contributed on: 7/27/2009 4:39:55 PM
Beaver Ponds is a five-mile loop hike near Mammoth Village in Yellowstone, just south of the north entrance to the park.
The trailhead is just north of
Liberty Cap, a large, extinct thermal feature that's part of Mammoth Hot Springs.
The trail is level for the first quarter-mile or so before climbing about 350 out of Clematis Gulch and onto a plateau above Mammoth Village. The plateau is mostly sagebrush plains, with a few stands of lodgepole pines and aspens.
Beaver Ponds is known for its wildlife, from elk to deer and bears to beavers (of course), but we only saw the former animals.
As we were entering a meadow, one of our group saw an elk venturing from the forest to the open, so we stopped to wait and eventually, a whole herd of elk emerged.
Another time, one of our keen-eyed hikers spotted a mule deer with a huge rack in the woods.
But no beavers. Or even any significant signs of beavers, such as the gnawed-up trees and beaver lodges I'd seen during
a trip to Piney Lake above Vail a couple of years ago.
Since Beaver Ponds was a relatively short and easy trail, on our way back home via the Lamar Valley and northeast entrance, we stopped at Trout Lake, a two-mile loop around a high-alpine lake. After a short but steep ascent from the trailhead to the lake, the trail around the lake is flat.
Trout Lake is a beautiful area that's easily accessible - in fact, maybe a little too accessible.
The lake is ringed by mountain peaks, there was a river otter and its pup playing and feeding, the trout were spawning up a small stream that fed into the lake, and we'd been told a black bear her and two cubs had been fishing and foraging along the lakeside shortly before we arrived.
But there also were flocks of fly-fishermen, bevies of families, swarms of photographers and herds of hikers; the parking area the trailhead was full by the time we got there.
It's the type of place you wish you could have to yourself, and being five or 10 miles in the backcountry usually guarantees that in Yellowstone (usually being five or 10 yards off the boardwalks suffices).
Regardless, it was a great way to break up the 125-mile trip home from Mammoth and a great secondary hike to end the day.