Ah, the cook circle at 8H3 - now this is a camp! Good logs to sit on, heavy timber for shelter from the biting evening wind, a great view out over Heart Lake and the wild country beyond, and a big stack of dry firewood piled up and ready for dark to fall. I eat early in bear country, and on this cold day above Heart Lake, I had dinner fixed and devoured an hour and a half before dark. The food pole is right beside the fire, and a bold little stream, Sheridan Creek, tumbles down the mountainside only 20 feet or so from the cooking area. That's some mighty fine tasting water too, unlike the stuff that I endured when I camped over on the east side of the lake. When I stayed over there, I ended up having to hike over to Surprise Creek each day that I was there to get some decent water. My filter clogged to the point of being unusable the first time that I tried to filter the churned up, feather-logged, mineral-laden goop from the lake. From that point on, I boiled all of the water that I used in camp, hoping that the fuel would last until the day of my departure. It did, but I learned my lesson. I still carry the filter, but I now also carry iodine tablets (thanks to greywolf, aka Tanya.) However, I've found that most of the mountain streams in Yellowstone have great water, so long as you don't get it from below a geyser basin. In dry years, it can be a bit disconcerting to have to push animal droppings aside at a waterhole, as I did in 1988 at Winter Creek near Mt. Holmes, to get to the water. In that case, you boil for a long, long time and find that it tastes alright so long as you have a short memory.
In the lower photo, one of the many storms to push through the area that day dumps snow on one of the drainages south of Heart Lake, probably in the upper Pacific Creek watershed. I think that the snowcapped peak on the horizon is probably Mt. Hancock on the storied Big Game Plateau.
By this time, late in the evening with dark coming on (the Witchin' Hour!) the wind had died to a whisper and I could clearly hear the wild cry of the loon far out on Heart Lake. A few wedges of geese hurried past overhead to wherever it was that they were in such a hurry to reach. The deer still rambled around the campsite, content with my company for the evening. I took my last cup of evening coffee down to the lakeshore to sit and watch the play of light on the clouds to the south while listening to the Wild Country chorus performing around Heart Lake. No elk this time - that surprised me. I didn't hear any elk until I headed back out past Paycheck Pass. However, the calls of a multitude of waterfowl were common, and I heard coyotes doing their evening roundup singing right as the light faded away.
Witch'n Hour - the finest time to be alive and in the backcountry of Yellowstone. It's when you know that you're committed to stay for the night, and wonder if you perhaps shouldn't be committed for doing so. It's what I think of when I wake up at 4 in the morning back in civilization. It's what keeps pulling me back to the Yellowstone backcountry year after year.