The Heart Lake backcountry patrol cabin is manned for most of the season, but there was nobody home this late in the year. To me, this is one of the most beautiful sites for a cabin in all of Yellowstone. I can't imagine what it must be like to spend months at a time in such spectacular surroundings. On this day, with snow squalls and drizzle sweeping the valley, I stopped for a while to enjoy a hot cup of coffee before heading on my way. A curious mulie doe light-stepped her way across the meadow in front of the cabin, stopping for a few moments to check me out, probably wondering whether I was friend or foe. The wild cry of the sandhill crane seemed to be coming from all directions. I've seen the cranes on all of the trips that I've made through this area, especially in the broad meadow behind the cabin on the north side of Heart Lake. Rafts of waterfowl float just off-shore, with loud wedges of Canadian geese rising and falling over the lake.

The cabin is only a couple hundred feet from the lakeshore. As the trail passes through the narrow band of timber and emerges onto the beach, it splits. One branch heads east towards the Continental Divide and Yellowstone Lake, and the other branch heads west towards Mt. Sheridan and the connecting trail to Snake River. That trail winds down the western shore of Heart Lake, passing below Mt. Sheridan along the way. That's where I'm heading today, with campsite 8H3 waiting at the end of my trek.

Snow had swept across the highlands a few days before, and the peaks were still capped with a mantle of white. The photo at the bottom of this page displays a panoramic view of the Red Mountain range as seen from the north shore of Shoshone Lake. I had left that very memorable region behind yesterday (see link to Shoshone Lake below the photo) and picked up a permit for Heart Lake while filing a bear encounter report at the Grant Village backcountry ranger station. I've learned over the years to trust the rangers when it comes to choosing the really good backcountry destinations. The rangers at Grant Village have never failed to deliver - my best trips in Yellowstone have been to the sites that they suggested.

In the photo below, you can spot the steam rising from Rustic Geyser in the thermal basin at the foot of Mt. Sheridan. Rustic Geyser erupts to a height of about 30 feet at intervals of from 30 to 90 minutes. The trail down the western shore crosses the drainage streams of that basin before reaching the cut-off trail to Mt. Sheridan.

By the way, Heart Lake, even though it may be considered the 'heart' of this wild region, is actually named for Hart Humey, an old trapper that roamed this area before the creation of the national park. As time went by, the accepted spelling switched to 'heart'.

The trail to the top of Mt. Sheridan is 3.9 miles long from the intersection near the lakeshore at the bottom to the fire lookout on top. There is no water along the way, so plan to load up before heading out. Some parts of the climb are really steep, but once the trail hits the long ridge north of the lookout, the grade eases. I had hoped to make the climb on this trip, but a snow storm ripped through the area during the night and I decided to put it off until another time. Climbing through a near-whiteout in prime Griz habitat doesn't appeal to me, especially considering the close call that I had the day before over at Shoshone Lake.