Forgotten Pics from Wyoming

I have a really crappy memory so of course I forgot a few pics I forgot. I wanted to show you all in a single post all the animals I saw in Wyoming.

Black Bear across the river

 This wasn't my only encounter with a bear. There was a female grizzly and her three cubs that kept coming into the ranch every night. We had been trying to see them but always missed them. Well one night my boss was walking across the yard to her cabin when she saw three small heads pop up in front of her cabin. Those three little heads were three grizzly cubs, once they saw her momma bear started walking towards her. My boss turned and ran back to the lodge where I was upstairs preparing for bed. I heard this thumping but wasn't sure what is was. Then it came again, so I started making my way out the apartment into the main lodge. Once I get there I hear my boss start to yell for me so I try and speed up but I was pitch black and I had to weave my way around the banister and chairs then down the steps. I get there are she jumps in the lodge and shuts the door. We then ran back up the steps to the upstairs porch just in time to see all four of the bears turn and head back out of the ranch.

Big Horn Sheep

 These cool sheep normally live in the high elevations of the mountains but come down from the mountains probably due to the large amount of snow the higher elevations got. While I was in Cody it was hunting season for these guys but its not like back home where we go to Wal-Mart and buy tags to kill deer or turkey. Here it is like a lottery, you put your name in the pot and then if you are lucky your name will be drawn for tags. I met one lucky hunter and he told me that the tags are drawn for specific areas and only so many tags are in each area. The area that I was in only had two tags that were drawn.

Big Horn Sheep

Bison

 I researched yesterday the different between Bison and Buffalo because I wasn't sure of the difference. So just in case you don't know either the easiest way to tell is that Bison have beards.

Mule Deer at Ranch

After the guest ranch season ends in Cody, WY the land is given back to the wildlife. You can see each of these animals right in your front or back door. They day I left I found a Bison sleeping right behind our tack barn. As you can see in the picture above there were several deer grazing in the ranch. A lot of the animals I have been told move into the land between Cody and Yellowstone because the mountains protect them from the harsh winters.

Moose and Calf in Tetons

Aspen, CO

I drove to Denver and went out with a few friends the 9th then woke up early the next day and drove to Aspen, CO through Independence Pass. Going to Aspen was amazing the trees had all turned yellow and it was snowing. I drove to Aspen to go to the Aspen Skiing Company job fair. Since it is getting colder I decided it would be warmer for me if I found a place to work that also had employee housing. I was lucky enough to be offered a job with Ajax Tavern as a hostess. Ajax Tavern is a ski-in/ski-out restaurant at the base of the Silver Queen Gondola. I looked over the menu and I am extremely excited about the truffle fries and double cheeseburger! I get a free snowboard pass to all four of the mountains for the season which I am really excited about and a discount on equipment. I FINALLY get the Ride board I have been wanting!
After I was offered the job and I accepted I left to make my way the Beulah. When I got back to the base of the mountain the pretty snow that had been falling was now deep and slushy snow. I am from Kentucky and well when it snows the whole town shuts down, I also drive a mustang which doesn't have the best traction in the rear or four wheel drive. It took me twice as long to make it back over the pass and I promised Betty (the mustang) that if we made it safely over the pass we would stop at the first town and get a hotel for the night. The only vehicles I passed going back over the pass were SUV or trucks, all of which probably were think that I was an idiot way out of my depth. Which I probably was but I didn't have many options, and I was afraid if I stayed the night it would just get worse. I trudged on through the slushy, slick snow. I passed several cars that were parked at the base of the mountain on the opposite side that didn't even attempt the mountain pass, one was a mustang just like mine. I made it down slowly but surely and stopped in Buena Vista for the night. I had the best pizza from Pizza Works - Italian Pizza with pepperoni, mushroom, roma tomato, roasted garlic slices. The garlic slices made it one of the best pizzas I had ever had.

Aspen Trees - golden and old tuck with logs

Mountain with the trees turned

On the way back over the pass- Base of the mountain

Left Wyoming

So on October 9th I left Wyoming and drove eight hours to Denver. I wanted to post some final pictures that I haven't posted yet.

I wanted to take a picture of this mountain because of the story I had heard about them. While talking with the locals I was told that the Indians in the area used to believe their ancestors were the rock formations you see at the top of the mountain. I though this was cool and made me look at the mountains in a different light.

 The house above was something I passed every time I went to Cody from the ranch. The story behind this unique house was that an architect built it but while he was working on completing the top part he fell off the roof. He had fallen off the roof twice before, but this time he wasn't so lucky. He passed away from the fall. His daughters are currently trying to raise money to finish their fathers dream. I am not sure how many of you all watch Tim Butrons Lemonysnikets but this is the kind of house I envision.

Wrangler in Cody, Wyoming

For the past week and a half I have been in Cody, WY working as a horse wrangler for Blackwater Creek Ranch. It has been a great few weeks. I have gotten to work with some fun horses and met some really interesting people from all over. We are in shut down mode right now getting the horses shoes pulled and wormed then we will move them to a pasture for the winter. I will be done next Monday then headed down toward Colorado. 

Baldface on top of June Ridge

Antelope Mountain

Beartooth Pass Mountains

Buffalo Bill State Park

Snow on the Mountains

Dead Indian Pass Monument

Pilots Peak Beartooth Pass

Overnighter - Surprise Lake - Grand Tetons, WY

Sorry it has taken me so long to update the posts the wifi here is a wee bit sketchy. Well Mom and I did an overnighter at Surprise Lake the day after we did the Jenny Lake hike. We started at Bradley Lake trail head which wasn't the "recommended" start, the park rangers did not like that we weren't going by the recommended route. They kept on looking at us like we were crazy. So we started early the next morning Greg hiked up to Bradley Lake and Taggert Lake with us then looped back to the truck. Both Bradley and Taggert Lake were beautiful blue lakes that were so clear and had the beautiful Teton Mountains in the back ground. We had lunch at Taggert Lake then left Greg to continue up the mountain. There was a never ending amount of switchbacks and we had to stop a lot due to my allergies and not being used to the high altitude. We saw a Mule deer that was right beside the trail and two Grouse (birds). Once we finally made it up to the top (which felt like it took 12 hours) and we were misled by hikers coming down who told us we were half way there when I think we were actually only a quarter of the way up. Once we finally made it to the top I stuck my feet into Surprise Lake which felt amazing. We accidentally set up camp in the wrong spot but decided against moving it because we were to exhausted. Once we started to get dinner ready for whatever reason the smaller fuel I bought for my pocket rocket wouldn't work. But luckily we had plenty of food that we didn't have to cook so we had a decent dinner. The next morning we woke up and walked up a quarter of a mile to Amphitheater Lake before packing up and heading out. The hike down the mountain was a lot easier than up. We met two guys from the Carolina's that were finishing the four day Teton Loop Trail. Once off the trail we found a nice brewery and I had a massive burger.

Bradley Lake

Taggert Lake

Surprise Lake

Amphitheater Lake

     

Monday Night Campsite - Shadow Mountain

Mom found this great free camping spot at Shadow Mountain which was right across from the Tetons and offered us a spectacular view for sunrise and sunset.

Early Morning Clouds over the Grand Teton

Sunset over the Tetons

Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point - Grand Tetons- Mon, Sept 9

Because the weather was set to get bad on Thursday, mom and I had to cancel the Teton Loop trip we had planned do. So Mom, Greg and I took the hike around Jenny Lake to see Hidden Falls and Inspiration point, which was about 5 miles round trip. I was a nice hike but tons and tons of people especially once you get over to where the falls were due to a ferry that takes all the lazy people across directly to the falls. The falls were gorgeous and inspiration point once you got over the hundreds of other people was an amazing view even though you could easily find a better view with less people. The thing that made the hike worth is was Moose Pond, we met someone on the way back to the truck that said that a moose and her calf were in the pond so we took that Moose Pond trail. When we got there the momma moose was in the pond sticking her head under to get at the water plants. My mom told me a little fact that moose can dive up to 18 feet and hold their breath for a minute, I said that they sound like four legged Manatees. The baby was asleep under the tree so I decided to take walk down the hill to see if I couldn't get a better look...Well as soon as I found a perfect spot Momma and baby got up and headed up the hillside we were all on, I didn't want to make the momma moose angry so I stayed where I was for a few minutes. I heard bushes moving and it sounded like they were moving away so I started back up to where my mom was but about halfway there I spot the baby moose and he sees me, I freeze because I can't see momma moose who when I do find her is on the other side of the tree and hasn't seen me yet. I hold still but when she starts making her way my way, decide that my best option is to climb up out of the trail and sit behind a tree in case she gets hostile with me being so close to her baby. As I am crouched behind the tree she makes her way directly opposite the trail from me eating, I can see every detail in vivid closeness. Then she sees me, everything freezes for about 20 seconds she is staring at me (giving me the stink eye) and I am staring right back trying not to move or look threatening. When she finally decides that I am not a threat she moves on down the trail and crosses over to my side, once baby follows is scuttle down from my hiding spot and walk briskly back up the hill to mom. I didn't have my camera but she got some good ones of my climbing up the embankment and the moose, I will post those when she emails them to me.

Westward Bound

I left for Grand Tetons, Wyoming on Saturday, September 7th. The plan was to pack everything up Friday night and leave early Saturday morning. It was a nice plan but since it was just a plan it didn't work out. So after having a family breakfast and packing up the last of my supplies I hit the road around 2pm. Luckily I enjoy driving at night rather than during the day because my goal was to get to the Nebraska boarder before stopping for the night.
I made it to St. Louis without a hitch but once I got into the city my phone that had my directions on it decided to die (my Iphone has a bad battery and haphazardly shuts off at different battery percentages) so while battling crazy city drivers I am trying to find my charger, turn on my phone and re-enter my ending destination to pull up the directions again. Once that was done it tells me that I am suppose to take the turn off on the left immediately, well I was sitting in the middle lane of a 5 lane hwy so I had to cut across two lanes of St. Louis traffic. Good news is I didn't hit anyone, they didn't hit me, and I made it onto the correct turn off. I had another glitch when I stopped off for Red Robin at 10 pm (I am addicted to their Whiskey River Chicken Wrap) I felt I deserved a treat for driving all day. It was YUM! The problem was getting back on, it was late and I was in a creepy part of town and when I merged onto one highway the directions then wanted me to immediately get on another highway which I confused with an actual exit so I was lost not once but twice finally the directions took pity on me and gave me directions to the end highway I was suppose to be on. At 2 am I pulled of to sleep in Nebraska City at a truck stop, my car was so packed I couldn't lay back my chair so I curled up on my pillow (thank goodness for the last minute decision to bring that pillow). I slept fit fully and woke up early, which was good because I still had 12 hours to go. Nebraska was uneventful except for a few times. I actually felt I was in a Western movie at one point when I saw a rolling tumble weed blow across right in front of me. The second was a Dust Devil which is a small whirlwind that picks up dust. I finally arrived in Granite Hot Springs campground outside of Jackson at 8 pm and went down the gravel road to find my mom and step dad (They left the light on for me).
All in all it took me 24 hours, two days of 12 hour driving to make it out.

Nebraska

Nebraska - If you look closely you can see the dust cloud that covers the state

Wyoming

St. Louis

Swift Camp Creek Trail - Red River Gorge, KY

Saturday morning I left out for Red River Gorge, Swift Camp Creek Trail to break in my new hiking boots and test out my new Tempurpedic ProLight sleeping pad. This trail was designated as hard and I wanted a challenge to prep me for my trip, well I got what I asked for. The trail is in the Clifty Wilderness area of the Gorge, it was a beautiful trail and truly "clifty" that follows the creek. But there are several parts where it was ridiculously narrow so you had to focus on your footing (FYI I am extremely ungraceful), there were a few parts where I felt like it was just a mad scramble and a little luck that got you up the muddy embankment without falling face first into the mud. I set up camp by following Dog Fork Creek (a shoot off of the main creek) due to the park rule that require campsites to be 300 feet away from the trail this was the best location for me to get off the trail and follow the river down to a nice area that seemed to have gotten a lot of use from other hikers with the same idea.
 By the time I got up the creek to the campsite my new boots were slightly wet on the inside but the biggest problem was the soles of my feet were sore because the Dr. Scholls foot inserts kept sliding around in my boot when I would go up or down hills. But my feet felt so good at first with that extra padding the inserts gave me, so I am back to the drawing board on this idea.
That night I had the Chicken Alfredo Mountain House Meals, it smelled amazing upon opening up the bag, like a big bag of popcorn (the reason for which I later found out was that it had a ton of dried white cheddar as seasoning). The pasta was very good I accidentally added to much water making it a bit watered down, but that is what I get for "eyeballing" the measurement.
When I went to bed I was LAZY and draped the back portion of my tent with my rain fly (I feel slightly claustrophobic with the rain fly on completely) good thing that I did because at 4:20am I was rudely woken up by it raining on my face. At that point I began scrambling around trying to get all the corners tied down and covering little leaf (tent). LESSON LEARNED: at least tie down lower portion of rain fly before bad that way when it does start raining the only part remaining is the top part. (My main issue was that I wear contacts/glasses - I have to be within a foot or so to see something clearly, so squatting down/bending down to the ground trying to get the little hooks of the fly onto the tent - VERY ATTRACTIVE)
I woke up again at 9am, it was STILL raining steadily. I laid there debating my option of trying to wait it out or march on ahead. Since it didn't sound like it was letting up any time soon I choose to go ahead and pack up. Since I was trying to stay as dry as possible till I hit the trail I choose to pack up my backpack while in the tent (which was comical), I was wallering around in my tiny tent trying to get my sleeping bag in its bag then trying to roll up my sleeping pad (which is the length of my tent), still not sure how I did that one. By the end of packing up I was a hot mess.
The hike back to the car while very wet was uneventful. The trail was even muddier and slipperier than the day before at times I thought for sure I was going to get a nice exfoliating mud bath or go rolling down the hillside.

Summary: Boots have officially been broken in, the sleeping pad works amazing (like sleeping on a cloud), need to figure out foot insert issue, and tie down bottom part of rain fly before dark and raining.

Test Run - Cumberland Gap

Mom and I wanted to give my gear a test run prior to heading west so we squeezed a back country hike on August 3-4.  We drove down to the Cumberland Gap and did part of there Ridge Trail, we hiked in at Lewis Hollow Trail and camped at Martins Fork for the night. Total miles hiked was around 26 miles, yes we were exhausted and physically in pain by the time we got back to the car.

First off I think we were a little overeager on what we thought we could do and the time we could do it in. The way to our campsite was a little ruff mainly due to the constant up hills. We would go down for a bit but then up for what felt like forever. And this is coming from someone who likes going uphill than down. Mom and I also would swear those stupid mileage signs were liars. We would hike for what seemed like two miles then as soon as we would discuss that we must have gone a couple miles with in the next hundred feet we would find a mileage sign that said we only went one (VERY depressing). Once we finally made it to camp and sat with our swollen feet in the cool water. we had a very nice dinner of lasagna from the dehydrated meals, we boiled water over my MSR Pocket Rocket which didn't take 5 minutes to boil then put the water in the bag with the noodles and waited.

The night was the most interesting, Mom decided not to pack her rain fly for her tent due to the added weight, even though it was a 50% chance on rain. It didn't start raining until full dark but when it did it poured. Mom's tent was drenched, luckily for her there was a small uninhabited cabin on the grounds where she took her sleeping bag and "tried" to sleep underneath the porch. I by the way while mom was in the middle of a tsunami, I was nice and dry in my little sierra, "Leaf" is it's name. But I would have to say it felt like I was camped right under a waterfall. Once it finally stopped raining I heard mom yell "GET OUT OF HERE" then heard something scuttle of the roof. Not five minutes after that did mom come to my tent and told me to scoot over. I will tell you this right now if you want to fit two people in a one person tent you better really love them because you are going to be right smack on top of them. And if your like me and like to roll around while you sleep two people makes it really ruff.

The way out was long but easier due to most of it being down hill, even though my toes were being crammed into the front of my boot the whole time. Once we finally made it back we nursed our wounds and treated ourselves to a PEPSI!!!! I know we went all out on that one :)

At the end of the hike we determined we both needed new hiking boots and I needed a sleeping pad. The only wildlife we saw was a turtle named "Speedy 2" and a frog which was so lost we saw him going in and going out. BUT after we were getting onto the main road we saw a very large doe not 30 feet from the road... (Typical)

Mom's Rigged Boots

Fence at Hennesy

Morning in the Forest (Peaceful)

Leaf with its rain fly

Dew caught in a Spider Web

 

Buying Equipment

I don't know what most of you keep in your houses/attics but when I decided to go backpacking for this long distance journey I realized I was grossly unprepared for four and five night back country camping in WY and CO. In Kentucky I would be fine with the glow and the dark American Girl sleeping bag or the tin clunky mess kit that I have had since I was in the Girls Scouts. With temperatures averaging low 30's at night in Wyoming in September I felt it was in my best interest buy by new equipment. The only item that isn't new would be my backpack that I bought for my backpacking trip to Europe a few years ago.

So below is a list of my new products:
Kelty - Cosmic 20 degree down women's sleeping bag - 21oz
Sierra Designs - Light Year 1 person tent - 2lbs 11oz
MSR Pocket Rocket - 3oz
8oz fuel can that is suppose to last me 60 minutes
Bear Vault 450 - Capacity 7.2 Liters - 2lbs 1oz

The only reason for the Bear Vault is because I am going to the Grand Tetons (they require it) and apparently the bears there are smarter than your average bear.