Yellowstone Backpacking 2021

August 16, 2021

Backpacking, Smoke, and Rain

My buddy Kristian and I made a second attempt to hike to Fairyland Basin the week of August 16, 2021, and were hoping that learnings from our 2019 trip would successfully get us to Fairyland this time. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate and we got rained out of our attempt. The rain was heavy enough that we cut our trip short by a couple of nights and hiked back out from 4B1 in one day.

Similar to our last trip we headed out from the Wapiti Trailhead in the Canyon area on August 16 and spent the first night at Moss Creek, 4M2. On the second day, August 17, we had a fairly easy bushwhacking hike to Joseph’s Coat Springs 4B2. This time we knew where the camp was so we made a more direct line for it. We then spent the afternoon exploring and finding a good spot for our crossing of Broad Creek the next day.

We planned a new route and had an extra day buffer in reserve, but a horrendous thunderstorm our first night at Joseph’s Coat Springs was an ominous sign of what was to come. We did make an attempt the next day, on August 18, nice and early under cloudy but not yet rainy skies, but the rain started before we had gone our first mile right before we even crossed Broad Creek near the Coffee Pot drainage. The rain continued the entire hike and we were soaked and our boots were wet, so we called it quits and headed back after reaching Coffee Pot Hot Springs. The forecast for the next couple of days was not good so the following morning, August 19, we hiked out and got picked up by Karen at the trailhead two days ahead of schedule.

On the way back from Coffee Pot we did find a nice easy way down the hill that could be used to climb the hill the next time! We also learned that mid-August had far fewer mosquitos than the beginning of August in that area of Yellowstone. At Moss Creek, we were swarmed by mosquitos the first week of August in 2019 but in 2021 they were easily tolerable.