Day 1
11.6 miles
Stargate, Jukebox and I met up last night in Riverton. We left early this morning for Dubois, which is about a 90 minute drive. Stargate had driven himself to Riverton because he had been on a road trip around the West for a couple of weeks before this trip. Jukebox and I both flew in from Denver to Riverton on the tiniest little plane I have ever seen. When we got to Dubois, we did a few last-minute errands. I bought bear spray from the couple who owns Trails End Inn, still wearing my N95 mask-the owner wanted to give me a speech about how Covid-19 is fake, how the masks do nothing, how Fauci is a fraud, etc. I have found in these kinds of situations that arguing is useless-I tried to find points of connection and steer away from the conspiracy theories-he warmed up after awhile. Dubois has had zero cases. I hope for Dubois’s sake that it stays that way.
Stargate had worked out a deal with a guy named Eric who owns the RV Park in town, to let him park his car there for the duration of our hike. We asked if he knew anyone who might be able to drive us to Union Pass, and he incredibly graciously offered to take us up the trailhead, an hour’s drive. He would take no money for gas. People can be so incredibly kind.
We started hiking about 12:30 pm from Union Pass, on Alex’s 30 mile alternate around the Moore Ranch (apparently he had an unpleasant altercation with the owner of this ranch when he hiked through.). The Route was a series of dirt roads, two-track, cross country, with a couple of stream fords. Wyoming in all its early summer green spread out before us, inviting. I was utterly delighted with the route and the scenery. The Gros Ventre mountains with their snowy peaks beckoned to us from the West-hopefully some of that snow melts off for us. A million wildflowers in blue, gold, red, pink peaked out of the fields. We settled down about 6:20 pm in a little copse of trees next to a babbling stream. The stream widened further down and we spotted a beaver, swimming lazily back and forth. A perfect first day.
Day 2
19.5 miles
We got moving at about 7:20 am, the sun was up and we made our way up Park Creek, continuing to follow the winding 2-track and boot track on Alex’s alternate. It was absolutely stunning-green soaring meadows under the blue sky, the snow capped Gros Ventre and Teton ranges in the distance (the Gros Ventres becoming closer and closer. Wildflowers of every color dotted the meadows and we crossed under fairy tunnels of intertwining Aspens. Alex really did a great job with the alternate-it was all pretty easy to follow, a little cross country, but basically no bushwhacking. Then, in the afternoon, I made a bad route call-Alex’s route had us going down by a ranch, and we weren’t sure what was private property, so I thought we could take what was marked as “Kinky Creek trail” on my topo. Bad idea. The trail was clearly decommissioned and absolutely covered in downed lodgepole pines. We sweated and climbed through the downed trees for an hour, and Stargate found a road on his topo that wasn’t marked on mine, that dumped us down to the ranch and back on Alex’s route. We timidly walked up the road to the ranch and a rancher came out to talk to us-friendly, but let us know we were supposed to take some trail above the ranch. We apologized and he gave us good directions to Clear Creek trail. We left the ranch, crossed into the Gros Ventre Wilderness, and Jukebox commented on how stereotypically attractive the rancher was. We spent the next 90 minutes writing the first chapter of a romance novel about Jukebox and the rancher, which was hilarious. We titled it “Serendipity at Clear Creek” and decided the rancher’s name should be Logan Johnson. It’s funny what is amusing when you’re hiking. We stopped at 7 pm about halfway up the excellent Clear Creek trail-seems like the ranch maintains it to use for horseback riding. Exhausted but a great day, and not too shabby mileage for day 2.
Day 3
15 miles
We got moving at 7:15 am to finish the Clear Creek trail up to the route. We met two horse packers who were very friendly, and warned us not too get too close to their tent which was set up a little ways up the trail, because it had an electric fence set up around it. Next-level grizzly bear protection. We started the route, which was immediately cross-country-rolling alpine hills, around 10500 feet. It was incredibly beautiful, with the huge Gros Ventre mountains soaring all around. Around 3 pm we summited a pass and the terrain completely changed-all rocks and snowfields now. There was a massive rockslide that had obstructed the way we wanted to go, with huge house-sized boulders (and smaller ones.). It was really unnerving to cross this boulder and talus field, because it was extremely unstable-you would step on a massive bolder and the whole thing would move. I think that this must have been a relatively recent rockslide, so the boulders hadn’t had time to settle. At any rate, it took us an hour and a half to get through it, and I was completely exhausted. Storm clouds also rolled in. We picked our way along the route for another 2 hours, dropping down a little from Alex’s route, which was obstructed by steep snowfields. We are going to take a lower route tomorrow on some trails towards Jackson, because Alex’s route stays on the ridge for about 12 miles around Antoinette peak and over Pyramid and a bunch of other peaks, and there will be thunderstorms for the next few days. I can’t think of where I would like to be less during a lightning storm. We made dinner together looking at the beautiful mountain scenery-that is until the rain started and we had to make a dash for the tents.
Day 4
19.3 miles
It rained, on and off, all night, thankfully letting up around 6 am. My new cuben fiber tent is extremely loud when the rain hits it and I didn’t sleep well. We got going at 7:30am, the weather was cool and windy, with huge misty clouds moving over the surrounding peaks-very beautiful. We were still in the alpine zone and needed to traverse around to below Anntoinette Pass-pretty easy walking on solid rock, which took us a couple of hours. Then we saw a sign for Crystal Creek, and thankfully, beautiful trail going down out of the alpine zone. We took the trail down a couple thousand feet and about 7 miles-the sun came out and it was warm. Then we crossed the river and took the West Crystal Creek trail back all the way up to regain the elevation and rejoin the route. This trail wasn’t nearly as well maintained and we got quite turned around for about an hour in the forest, but eventually found the trail again. I am finding that I am quite tired starting at about 5 pm-I am not in trail shape yet, and my feet are also quite tender. In time. I lost a lot of conditioning when I was ill with shingles in June. The trail will eventually even me out. At 6:30, Stargate suggested we get water to camp, and thank goodness he did, because then at 6:45 huge clouds rolled in and rain drops started to fall. We found a nice little cluster of trees next to a meadow and a lake and quickly set up our tents and dove inside, right as it started to pour and hail started to fall. Perfect timing.
Day 5
22 miles
We continued on the trails today towards Jackson. We saw a herd of bighorn sheep at about 10750 feet elevation in the morning. The trails were faint frequently in the meadows and took some finding. In the afternoon Stargate and I jumped into Flat Creek because it was hot and sunny. The water was extremely cold-mountain streams are often snow-fed. It rained for awhile in the early evening-we found a usable camp spot in the woods about 3 miles from Jackson on the Cache Creek trail-not perfect but okay. I have lost 2 toenails.
Day 6
5 miles
We walked into Jackson today, to resupply.
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