A Beautiful Day's Hike at Storm Point in Yellowstone National Park

Date: July 19, 2020

Place: Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Coordinates:  44.559661, -110.326423

Length: 2.6 miles

Level: easy

Because our trip to Yellowstone was so impromptu, we had no campground reservations and had to rely on cancellations. We were fortunate to find a campsite for each of the three nights we spent in the park, but each night it was another site so we would start each day with packing everything and finish the day with setting up at the next site. It was tiring but by the time we got to the park the youth were already very efficient in doing all of this. On our second night in Yellowstone we camped at the Canyon Lodge campground. As soon as we got there the elder chika saw some gray jays on the picnic table of the next site over and rushed into their site waving her camera and yelling, "gray jay! gray jay!" After their initial bewilderment they graciously allowed her to take photos of the coveted bird. She got even better shots on the following morning, in better lighting. 

Gray Jay

We started the morning by stopping at the visitor center. The building itself was closed due to the pandemic but the rangers stood outside with pamphlets. When we asked about where we could see wildlife and wildflowers they recommended we'd hike the Storm Point Trail. They also said that a grizzly bear was sighted there on the day before and suggested I'd get a can of bear spray, which I duly did. 

From the visitor center we drove directly to Storm Point's trailhead. The small parking lot was vacant. We parked and got ready for our hike.

Our hike as captured by my GPS

The trail stretched flat and straight ahead of us. I attached the bear spray on my belt, half expecting to see a grizzly bear pop from behind the trees, and we started down the trail. The youth didn't show any alarm and soon I too forgot about the possibility of encountering bears on the trail.

Storm Point Trail

Right around the trees we saw a small lake named Indian Pond. The pond was surrounded with a beautiful, green meadow where many wildflowers were blooming. As we walked through the meadow the last thought of bears disappeared from my mind.

Indian Pond

Most of the wildflowers blooming in that meadow were yellow cinquefoil flowers, but here and there rose the inflorescence blades of the western larkspur.

When I saw them blooming closer to the trail I had to stop and take a closer loo, of course. These larkspurs were the tallest and proudest plants, like sentinels watching over the meadow.

Western Larkspur

The trail didn't come right to the shoreline but skirted the pond on the west. Indian Pond was calm. We saw no waterfowl or other birds in or near the water.

Indian Pond

Native thistle plants bloomed near the pond. They were at the season's beginning and nt yet grown to full height. 

Elk Thistle, Cirsium scariosum

As we left the pond behind and moved on we noticed two bull bison ahead, very very close to our trail. Way too close for comfort. I have experienced hostility from cows on my hikes before, and bison aren't cows. They are wild and ferocious animals, and can be very dangerous, no matter how calm they might appear. The park authorities recommend keeping a minimum of 30 feet distance from bison. The trail was much closer to them than that. 

We stood there for some time, beholding the bison with awe and wondering what to do. I was about to lead the youth off trail and bypass the bison through the meadow when the bison salved our dilemma by simply walking away themselves. 

American Bison

On we went. The youth marched forward at a fast pace and I brought up the rear, occasionally pausing to take photos of wildflowers. 

The trail entered a forested area for a short distance. The trees weren't thick enough to cast any serious shade on the trail but at his point we didn't need it. The day was nice and warn but not to hot yet. 

Storm Point Trail 

The trees were a good place to look for birds. Indeed, the elder chika found a few little brown birds and spent some time photographing them.

Savannah Sparrow

Soon after we stepped out of the forested area and into the view of Lake Yellowstone. Lake Yellowstone is the largest water body within the park. 

Yellowstone Lake

We didn't stay out in the open for long. The trail plunged one again into the woods and although we were getting closer to the lake, we now saw only glimpses of it through the trees.

 There were different, shade-tolerant wildflowers blooming under the trees.

Sagebrush Bluebell, Mertensia oblongifolia

 

We reached a trail junction where the loop part of the hike started. We took the left fork of the trail split, hiking the loop clockwise. This way we stayed near the lake shore.

Storm Point Trail

After taking the left fork at the loop junction we got to the shore of Yellowstone Lake. It was windy and the wind raised ripples and small waves on the lake's surface. There was no mirror reflection there that day.

Yellowstone Lake

I couldn't see any waterfowl in the lake but the elder chika has a better sight than me and a stronger camera lens. She spotted a sole duck in the water.

Common Goldeneye

The trail led us into the forest once more but we remained close to the lake shore. By the time we welcomed the shade as the day got warmer. 

Storm Point Trail

More wildflowers welcomed us in the sunlit patches under the trees. Sunflower-like arnica shone to us like little suns under the trees.

Heartleaf Arnica, Arnica cordifolia

I saw a white flower that I would never have identified as penstemon if I hadn't seen it just a month before on my family trip to Oregon, growing on the basalt rocks of the Newberry Volcano near Bend. 

Rock Penstemon, Penstemon deustus

Mule ears blossoms waited for us as we stepped out of the forest into the sunlight once more. Mule ears like to grow in large patches but I have seen only a few of them there that day.

Mule-ears, Wyethia 

The trail distanced a bit from the lake, and for a while we were also going up and down little hills and vales. Nothing challenging, though, but enough to give us a bit of a higher pulse. 

When we saw the lake again there was a large grassy meadow between us. We circumvented the meadow from the east, heading directly toward the water. 

Round mountains were visible on the other side of the lake, and some of them even had a few snow patches on them still. I didn't pay too much attention to the mountains until one of the youth pointed a out to me a distant, much pointier peak that was faintly visible between the lower, nearer mountain, and asked if that was the Grand Teton. Well, it was certainly the correct trajectory, and I think it was.  

When we reached the lake shore again the youth asked for a break. Ahead of us the trail was going up a small hill and I talked them into going on it, hoping we'd found a good and shaded place to sit. 

That place turned out to be past the hill and not on it. It wasn't shaded either, but it was close enough to the water. None of us took a dip or did as much as dunking our feet in the water, but we did enjoy a nice break facing the gorgeous view of the lake. 

Not to mention, there were a lot of wildflowers on the sandy slopes near the water. The vibrant combination of the yellow buckwheat with the penstemon'b blue was simply wonderful. 

These plants had a major role in stabilizing the lake shore sands. The buckwheat especially, had a wide radius of roots that could ground sand at a good size patch around the plant. 

Sulphur Buckwheat, Eriogonum umbellatum

A bit higher up the slope were piles of rock too. Some of the youth in my company took the opportunity to climb these rocks. I was more interested in the plants that bloomed in the cracks of these rocks. 

A few hyperactive yellow butterflies flew about, exercising a tough and go pollination activity. I had a hard time taking photos of these butterflies but I managed one. My chika did berry with her birding lens and it is her photo that I post here. 

Clouded Sulphur Butterfly

Most of the blue flowers blooming on the sandy sloe were penstemons but I saw quite a few bunches of blue flax - the heights-loving native flax species. 

Blue Flax, Linum lewisii

The yellow flowers were nicely represented by numerous woolly groundsel shrubs that were at the peak of their bloom.

Woolly Groundsel, Packera cana

The blue penstemons however, were the stars of the colorful summer show of the Storm Point hike.

Blue Beardtongue, Pernstemon cyaneus

We continued west along the shore of Lake Yellowstone. The trail was elevated from the water level and I liked the way the sandy slope seemed to melt beneath the crusty hard sand top where the trail was.

The sand was a good substrate for wildflowers, and I was seeing more species of them as we moved along the trail.

Silverleaf Phacelia, Phacelia hastata

On the right side of the trail, north if the lake, the sand was stabilized by a good vegetation cover. I looked at the trees ahead - soon we would leave the lake shore on our way back to the parking lot.

It is hard to describe the wildflowers richness I saw on this hike. Probably the most difficult part of this blog post was to select which one to include and which to leave out and doom to be forgotten.

Aster

We passed next to a little hill where the sandy slope was covered with silverleaf lupine. I was well familiar with this lupine species from California and it was nice to see it here too. 

This lupine species is named so because its leaves are covered with many tiny white hairs, giving it resistance to radiation and help minimizing water loss. The hairs give the leaves their silvery hue.

Silverleaf Lupine, Lupinus argentus

The trail turned north and back inland, leaving the lake shore. I turned around taking a last goodby photo of the beautiful Yellowstone Lake before hastening to catch up with the rest of my group.

Yellowstone Lake

On my way up the little hill I saw a few more pretty wildflowers in the sand. The  evening primrose was one of them, and there weren't too many primroses blooming there at the time. 

Evening Primrose, Oenothera elata

More yellow wildflowers carpeted my path up the trail, most of them composites. 

Common Woolly Sunflower, Eryophyllum lanatum

Soon we left the shore sand and its colorful inhabitants behind us. Once again I glanced back - a field of low shrubs and blooming mule ears separated us from the lake now. 

Heading steady north now, we were once again moving between small tree stands and concave clearings. Mini salt flats in some of the low clearings indicated that they were small basins - the runoff water had no way out of there but through evaporation. 

Eventually the trail curved east and the forest closed in on us. By now we welcomed the nice shade, although the trees were too thin to cast much shade on the trail.  

Storm Point Trail

The youth pointed out flowers to me. My chikas already knew how to recognize those that held significance to them, such as the strawberry. It was blooming though, not yet with fruit. 

Woods Strawberry, Fragaria vesca 

We completed the loop and turned north again on the same trail we came down on from the parking area. I didn't pause as much there. The youth were eager to finish the hike and go eat. 

We reached Indian Pond again. I was relieved to see that the bison were no longer right by the trail. There was a single bison in view, and he was far away, at the edge of the pond. 

My camera lens wasn't strong enough but my elder chika had a birding lens and used it to take a close up photo of that bull bison. 

Bison

She also took photos of the sole Canada goose that stood in the brush. We weren't sure if he was lost or what. Now that I think of it, he might have been standing next to his nesting mate who was probably hiding in the vegetation, sitting on eggs.

Canada Goose

The parking area which was empty when we went on the hike had now a few more cars, and the people were standing there, viewing the bison from a safe distance. Even after finishing the hike I kept looking for wildflowers and finding them. 

Fleabane, Erigeron sp. 

The youth wanted to go eat, but my elder chika wouldn't leave until she got a good image of the tree swallow that perched nearby. 

Tree Swallow

Since none of the park's facilities were open because of the pandemic, we had to drive all the way to Gardiner, north of Yellowstone Park, because they had pay showers and laundry facility open, and after several camping days we all were in serious need of both. I wouldn't necessarily have mentioned that here if not that on the way there, just outside the park's northern boundary, we spotted a herd of bighorn sheep on the cliff by the road. Naturally, we had to stop and watch them as they climbed slowly up the steep slope. 

Bighorn Sheep