Almost bright enough to read by, the full moon casts a bright trail across the cold waters of Heart Lake. Clouds are still building to the south, but for now, it's quiet and dry here on the western shore, on the eastern slopes of Mt. Sheridan.
Below, dawn breaks cold and wet. A big storm ripped through the Heart Lake region last night, leaving a blanket of snow on the hills and peaks around the lake. Wind speeds must have been well over 50 mph. Snug inside the Big Agnes, I slept like a baby, waking only a few times when the browsing deer fed around the tent. When I awoke this morning, it was cold, really cold, with both rain and snow pouring from the sky. Only a couple of hundred feet higher than my camp, the snow line is nearly hidden behind a curtain of grey clouds, obscuring the slope where I watched the bears rambling yesterday. This is not my favorite weather for backpacking, but it's wild and magnificent. I'll take Yellowstone anyway that I can get it, and if it means getting a bit chilly, I'll happily pay the price.
I was up until early morning writing in my journal, enjoying the fire and bright moonlight. The difference in the weather is pure Yellowstone. Things change fast here, and the secret is to be prepared for anything that it throws at you. Do that, and you'll keep coming back for another helping of Yellowstone magic.

More from the journal:
"Rocks bump in the nearby creek and the trees rub and moan in the still night air. The witch'n hour is past and I've settled into the comfort of a good fire in the backcountry of Yellowstone. Funny, but the encounter yesterday at Shoshone Lake isn't bothering me. Ever since my trip to Heart Lake two years ago, I just haven't let 'bearanoia' get to me. That's not to say that I don't get the heebie jeebies anymore. I had a good case going yesterday when I missed the turnoff to the campsite. This is definitely not a place to wander around in the dark. The night belongs to the Griz. When I go to my tent, about 200 feet away in the open meadow, I make a lot of racket and move slow to give any 'visitors' time to move on at their own pace.
The only downside to the fire is that it shuts off the outside sounds. I can't hear the coyotes singing now over the popping and crackling of the blaze. I heard wolves every night that I spent over on the east side of the lake, but not over here. Again, the sound of the fire drowns a lot of that out, but that's OK. The fire is a good companion for the night. After I leave here, I'll be heading north to meet Annie and Tom at Slough Creek for a few days of hiking. That'll be a nice break from the solitude of solo trips.
Damn, my butts sore from sitting on this log for so long while I write in the journal, but if I slide down to the ground, I'll miss the view out over the lake. Right now, I'm looking out over the campfire at the moonpath on the lake. Again, I really owe the guys at the backcountry office in Grant a big thanks for this one. I have this site for another day, but a big storm is supposed to roll in tonight and tomorrow. I'm looking forward to heading north to meet Annie and Tom, but I've got to admit that it would be great to hole up here and watch the storm roll in. I wish that I'd brought the sili-tarp along for shelter, so that I could sit outside the tent and enjoy the storm. Don't know about staying inside the tent all day if it's raining when I wake up.
For dinner, I had hot mocha and Ramen gumbo. That's Ramen noodles with an envelope of Nestles Cream of Chicken soup mix added, along with some cheddar potato flakes and dried veggies. It sounds weird, but it's really delicious. Of course, I added lots of pepper too. For breakfast, I'll have good strong coffee, a peanut butter sandwich and some banana chips. I smashed up a bunch of nacho chips so that they'd fit in a ziplock bag, so that's my salt fix for the day.
The water in Sheridan Creek is delicious. Must be the snow melt and Griz piss. I'm not drinking as much as I should, but at least I won't have to pile out of the tent in the middle of the night. That's something that I've never really enjoyed doing in Yellowstone, even though the time a few nights ago when I had to jump out of the tent to run the bull elk out of camp was pretty wild.
The moon is huge! I can clearly see Big Game Ridge, south of the Snake, and west of the Thorofare. There is still a lot of snow up there, plainly visible in the moonlight. I think that we flew right around Big Game Ridge on the way into Jackson last week, dodging the cloud cover over the Hole. I recognized a lot of landmarks as we flew up and over the drainage of Pacific Creek, and again when we turned south and flew just west of Two Ocean Lake and Emma Matilda Lake. I also caught a glimpse of the southeast arm of Yellowstone Lake, but we turned west before popping out of the cloud cover, so the glimpse was brief."