Cold. The calendar said August, but up at the Specimen Creek Trailhead, 21 miles south of Big Sky, it felt more like late October. The heavy sweater I was pulling over my head at 6:45 a.m. was the fifth layer, and I was not entirely sure it would be enough. 

All was frost, and a heavy mist was marking my breathing as I began to tread my way along the creek’s edge. Skirting the talus and woods in grey light for the first mile or so, I had the bear spray out with the safety off. I have spent enough time in these parts at dawn to know what lurks in shadow. Sunlight was busy breaking apart clouds down at the far end of a deep valley. Coming into the first meadow was surreal. Somehow, the sunlight had ignited just the meadow and the creek running through it. Dew and frost and sage and caramel-colored grasses were all mixing to create an early autumn burnt orange. The air was heavy with the scent of eucalyptus from the fragrant sage-bushes. It was delightful.

At the two-mile mark I had generated enough heat to remove my sweater. The trail split. I stayed left and headed up a valley that was boxed in by high cliffs to my left, and a block of mountain on my right. The sunlight was slowly dripping down from both sides but I walked in cold shadow. The creek was singing with joy as a herd of elk moved across the landscape and up into the sun. At the fourth mile, I removed another layer and crossed a wide stream that coursed through wide, gorgeous meadows. All was yellow and blue and running water. On the other side of that crossing, I entered thick woods. At mile six, the trail split yet again. The left trail goes up to Shelf Lake. I stayed right and began the mile-and-a-half trek up to Cascade Lake. I peeled off two more layers. 

Cascade Lake, tinted glacial green, is surrounded by a massive cirque of mountain stone. It is everything you dream about, or could possibly want, in this corner of remote wilderness called Yellowstone. This is the other Yellowstone, the one very few people know about, and which even fewer will ever explore. This is the Yellowstone I love most.

Scores of large, colorful dragonflies skimmed across the lake’s surface in a timeless dance that measures their short lifespan up in this high country. There was a solitary loon… and then there were two. Then four, six… eight loons! Well, they looked like loons. Honestly, I am not entirely sure what they were, other than supremely graceful. Lots of small birds too, all busy flitting from branch to branch. All gathering and getting ready…

It was all so mesmerizing that I did not want to miss a thing. I set my pack against a log and leaned back into it. It was a ballet of life. Everything so brilliantly—perfectly—choreographed. The sun cast her spell and worked deep into my aching muscles. I wondered if I might just fall asleep, right here, in this utterly perfect spot. 

A chattering squirrel woke me up as it frantically ran back and forth along fallen logs at the water’s edge. Both sun and shadow had noticeably shifted. Colorful flowers had opened at random intervals and they were gently swaying in tempo. Robert Frost’s refrain echoed deep within me: “I had promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep…”

But still, I relished all this. The solitude and the ancient wilderness. The sound of wind and water, which stirred an old soul deep within. The glinting of sunlight snapping off the water’s edge only pulled me deeper into her trance. This ageless balance of nature muting all the senseless static and din of the valley far below. The shadows began to pull long and I thought: Just a little longer.