A brief review of what I'm talking about. My hubby and I, and two great friends, backpacked 83 miles in 9 days. It wasn't the fastest we've ever hiked, but this was a pretty hard trail, lots of straight up and down, and it was a good pace considering my feet were a mess with blisters and I twisted my ankle one mile into the hike. Plus we had purposely planned it that way so we could enjoy some of the mountains, versus just looking at our feet and walking.
We hiked the mountains called the Wyoming range, yep located here in Southwest Wyoming, from Snyder Basin to to Bryan Flats near Hoback Junction. It is a National Recreation Trail that is not well marked. You'll need a good navigator to hike this trail.
We were very spoiled on this trip as more great friends, met us half way with a food drop and a night of steaks. Mmmmm good and we only had to carry four days of food at a time!
No worries, I won't bore you with a play by play, just some highlights.
This was our campsite on Night One. Boy, were we tired when we got here, but it's amazing how food and sleep get you ready for the next day.
This climb was much steeper than it looks! The steepness combined with the fact that the creators of this trail didn't believe in a switch back led us often to be standing at the bottom of a hill looking up thinking, "Really?".
There was a lot of snow up there yet. Yes, it's September. Yes, the snow is from last winter. This snow is what leads to the very cold water in all the springs.
Ok, sing it with me... "Climb every mountain........"
Cold stream water and a good taping. Even with the walking, I think that is the best my ankle has handled a sprain. Oh - don't forget the Ibuprofen, otherwise known as Vitamin I!
The perfect lunch stop.
A couple things surprised me about this mountain range. The number of flowers (to be seen in the next blog post) and the waterfalls. There were a lot of waterfalls, and this was a pretty double one we camped near on night three. Otherwise known as the water that wasn't supposed to be, as we didn't think we'd find water that night and had carried quite a bit from our afternoon stop.
We had walked through this valley, and were almost to the pass. After sitting on his perch Joe thought he would try to stand on it. All three of us vetoed that idea immediately. There really isn't anything on the other side of the rock.
We walked above treeline a lot, especially the first half. We walked this whole ridgeline. It's hard to walk on a ridge line as there are views on each side of you. I have to keep stopping and looking around, because if I look around while walking I'm sure to fall all the way down the mountain!
See how far that valley goes. The views never stopped.
Hard to tell, but those are the Tetons in the distance. In person, it was an amazing view.
Our last morning was our coldest morning and we got going in the cold, since it's not fun to stand around it.
On the last day, we had 4 river crossings in a couple of miles. Boots off... cross in sandals... Boots on... repeat three times.
The End. Don't we look like we deserve a beer and a good meal?!!? I may look silly in my hat, which is on in all pictures, but I walked for 9 days in the sun without getting a burn, so it worked!
Watch for the upcoming Flower blog post based on trail flowers.
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