Wind River Range

Last weekend was pretty uber. This Tuesday was Pioneer Day (in short, the day the Morman posse arrived in the Salt Lake Valley and decided to chill here) so I was off work and snagged a vacation day on Monday to procure a four day weekend.

I had wanted to check out the Yellowstone/Grand Teton area for a while and got some good information on a three-day backpacking loop hike in the Wind River Range. This range isn't actually in the National Parks, but it's on the same ridge (the Continental Divide) and meant I wouldn't have to deal with permits or hordes of people.

Day 1:

I set off for Pinedale, Wyoming and the trailhead; driving through Wyoming was interesting, it's really pretty flat and filled with small towns until you hit the mountains. And I mean REAL small towns. Most of these places had less than 500 people and I couldn't help but wonder what they do for a living (I hypothesize the answer may be cattle ranch stuff).

Somewhere along the drive I discovered I had no pot to boil water. This means my freeze dried dinners would be... freeze dried... and my oatmeal would be dry too. I stopped in Pinedale and picked up a pot. A random lucky close call.

I took off from the trailhead after registering and all that. There are grizzly and brown bears in the wilderness and signs declared this in a way that made me think I was guaranteed to get eaten. A couple miles later, I passed this on the trail:



Shnikeys... Hmmmmmmm.... Well...... Ok.

My first day was spent mostly working my way up a creek drainage that was absolutely beautiful. You forget how much mileage you can cover in one day and I was surprised at how far back in the canyon I was getting.



I saw not one, but three moose along that river. One of which was a bull (male), these dudes are big and scary. We had a classic moment of "Looking-At-Me-Looking-At-You" before deciding that we were friends and not food (phew).



I started the climb out of the valley that night and found a campsite along a stream on a little bluff overlooking the valley. In an effort to cut some weight, I hadn't brought a tent and was instead using a bivy sack (sort of like a waterproof cocoon for your sleeping bag) and a tarp. Sleeping with the sunset and under the stars was magnificent.



I'll post day two and three in the next couple days...