Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
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Lamar River Trailhead, and a large parking area for
Specimen Ridge, Lamar
Valley, Cache Creek,
and
Miller Creek Trails.
This is the starting point for long trails up Spe-
cimen Ridge or into the remote backcountry. One can hike or ride horseback up the Lamar
River and east of the Mirror Plateau into mountainous areas to Yellowstone's eastern bound-
ary and beyond.
All trails cross a sturdy footbridge over Soda Butte Creek. The apparatus near the bridge
measures the flow of water.
Historic remnants hike.
History buffs might enjoy a short walk from this trailhead
to some historic points from the nineteenth century. Cross the Soda Butte Creek footbridge
to look for remnants of the Gardiner to Cooke City miners' road. According to the late Yel-
lowstone historian Aubrey Haines, the two deep tracks that can still be seen paralleling Soda
Butte Creek were left by miners dragging an
arrastre
(a heavy apparatus for grinding ore, pro-
nounced a-RASS-treh) along the valley.
Farther along the trail, you might look for the scant remains of a cabin built for gamekeep-
er Harry Yount in 1880. About 1.6 miles (2.6 km) from the parking area, you can still find
chimney stones and traces of a spring box at the base of the hill near the trail junction. Tall,
deep green rye grass still gives away the area where Yount pastured his horses. If you reach the
point where you would have to ford the Lamar River, you've gone beyond the remnants.
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Alternate access to the Lamar Valley trails. This one is used especially
by horseback riders, who take guided pack trips into the mountains.
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Located just up the hill from the present road was an especially steep section of
the old road, the Jackson Grade. George Jackson squatted (that is, settled without legal claim)
near here in the 1880s.
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Confluence of Soda Butte Creek with the Lamar River. High snow-melt here in June
2011 washed out half the road—quickly repaired.
Chances of seeing bison are excellent in the Lamar Valley, their summer feeding ground.
Near here was the site of an elk corral, used to trap elk and reduce the size of the herd for
about 30 years in the mid twentieth century.
