After calling and wishing my mother a happy mother’s day, I went down to Hyalite for some snowshoeing. Hyalite canyon road is closed to motor vehicles from April 1st to May 15th for spring break up.
The good part is if you go up there you practically have the whole place to yourself. Concordantly, you can bike on a nice road without worrying about cars.
The bad part is that it has snowed appreciably on half the days the road has been car free making getting up there on a bike not always reasonable.
I went up once earlier, April 12. At that time, I didn’t have a blog so I couldn’t tell the internet about it. So, here is a quick synopsis. I had to do a significant amount of bike pushing to the reservoir and then I hiked back to grotto falls which was just a pile of snow at the time. I had really wanted to hike a bit up wildhorse creek trail because I think it has the signature Hyalite view, but I was post-holing to my waist every step. So I decided that I would bring snowshoes next time.
So today, I biked up with my snowshoes. It got cloudy eventually but I had gotton up there early enough to beat the clouds. The road was totally clear up to the reservoir and spotty past. I got up wildhorse to my view, snapped a few shots then came back down and headed off towards pallisade falls. The road that goes off to emerald lake trailhead does not get vehicle traffic/plowing over winter so the snow’s deep. I put my shoes back on and made it out to pallisade.
I was the only one out beyond the reservoir. On my way back, I saw two people at the reservoir and a good number of people making their way up. It’s kind of funny to see them all in their bike jersey’s and I have on boots and snowshoes on my back.
Here’s a picture from wildhorse and one of pallisade falls.
Tags: bozeman, hiking, hyalite, showshoeing
