It seems like yesterday we were just entering Wyoming and in the blink of an eye we have already left and are now in Idaho. Wyoming has been quite the state and is certainly the definition of extremes! We entered the state in the hot, dry and flat Great Divide Basin which was followed by the most beautiful mountains I have hiked through; The Wind River range. Yesterday, after three days in Yellowstone National Park we left Wyoming. Wow, what a place it has been!
Going back to the Winds... This place is any hikers or rock climbers paradise. There are no roads through the mountains and it requires at least ten miles of hiking to reach the true Wind River range. It is such a unique place with absolutely stunning peaks, lakes, glaciers and trails. I want to go back and explore it even more, it is such a large area and we went through such a small potion of it. One could easily spend a few weeks hiking through it and never go to the same place. We were exhausted though after seven days through there as the terrain is difficult with lots of steep climbs so we took a day off at Lava Mountain Lodge near Dubois.
One thing I haven't mentioned is that we have been in bear country for the last few weeks. Since we entered the Winds we have been hanging our food every night and we cook in the middle of the day instead of at night so there is no smell of food near the tent. Unlike the AT, there are not just black bears here, I'm talking about grizzly bears and they are HUGE! We haven't seem any yet but have seen a LOT of footprints and enormous piles of scat. Some of the prints are as big as Brazil Nut's feet and most are as wide as both of my feet together! It's truly scary to imagine how big these animals are!!
Earlier this week we entered Yellowstone. I had been there many years ago, and went through the park by car, so I definitely feel like we saw more of the park this time. We entered from the south and followed the Snake river for about the ten miles. This area, and in fact much of the park is full of dead forest and tons of fallen dead trees as a result of the 1988 wildfire that destroyed so much of the park. It was amazing to see the destruction and that it has taken so long to grow back and that so much of it never grew back. The trail we took through back country also took us past lots of geysers and beautiful lakes. On Friday we walked right into Old Faithful village to eat and resupply. It was great to have lots of food but we both agreed that it was an extremely overwhelming place, there were SO many people!! Everyone was moving so quickly, there were so many cars and so much noise that we were ready to get out of there after just a little while. We followed a great trail next to a number of pools and geysers for the next two miles before leaving the masses of people and returning to the solitude of the woods. We camped one more night in the park and got up early yesterday and hiked 30 miles to get to Island Park, ID and are taking today off. Did I mention we are in Idaho?! State number four! We are only in Idaho for a few days, then we cross into Montana- the final and longest state!
It's time for us to go resupply and clean some of our gear! Thanks for following and thanks for reading!
-Jetpack
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