Miles traveled: 87
Hours on Road: 7
States covered: 1 –Wyoming
5:30 this morning, Trey and I headed out to the airport to take John to his flight that was to leave at 8 a.m. People on flights from Jackson are supposed to arrive two hours early because they pack all their flights into a few hours each day to keep employee work hours down. They process several hundred passengers all in a short period of time and then send the planes off, one right after the other. On the way to the airport, since it was so early, we saw many animals. A herd of elk was crossing the road at one point and bison were everywhere.
Trey and I returned to camp and went back to sleep for another two hours. The beds are just that comfortable.
Jeff picked out a hike for us that began at the Death Canyon Trailhead. The way the area got its name is not as bad as it sounds. One winter a surveying crew went out, and one of its members was never seen again. The trail we followed eventually leads to Phelps Lake, but first you have to reach the lookout above the lake, which is at 7,200 feet. On the way to the trailhead we saw a mule deer as well as that mama moose with her calf again, still along that same river.
The day was really hot, and Cal complained of a headache. We made him keep going, chalking it up to his not having had enough water. We kept pushing the water on everyone. The walk to the summit was through fairly thick woods, but the path was clearly marked. There wasn’t a great deal to see since the forest blocked out all the mountains. From the summit, the view of the lake was beautiful. We headed down the same kind of path you find everywhere in this area – a narrow ledge with a steep drop-off to one side. I’m almost getting used to it.
At one point on the path the boys found a seat “made by God.” It was a rock that had a perfect ledge for sitting, and it was located in a rare shady spot along the path. During the walk, Parker noticed an animal on a rock far away; I was impressed he saw it. There was no way to tell what it was with the naked eye, but with the camera, we decided it was a beaver.
We reached a spot on the path that indicated you could go either right or left to reach the lake. We opted for right. We should have gone left. The sign wasn’t that far from the lake, which we had seen not long before we reached the sign, so we knew we were close. But the path to the right went on and on, and it led away from the lake. We finally turned around. When we got back to the sign, we saw a guy who had a map. Looking at the map we saw the problem. While both paths did, in fact, lead to the lake, the one to the right was a lot longer than the one to the left. With our newfound knowledge, we took the path to the left. Before long, we were at the lake.
The horseflies had been terrorizing us the whole walk, and they weren’t any better at the lake. In fact, they were worse, because we weren’t moving. Jeff, Trey, and Cal all went swimming. Cal said it made his headache worse, but at least he looked a little cooler (his face had been bright red). He even started shivering, since the lake is glacier fed, so I knew he was cooling off. We stayed for at least half an hour. Parker and Trey wanted to go farther and get to a rock we could see across the lake that people were jumping off. I said I didn’t care if they went, but I was going back to the van. They decided to go back with me. And it was a good thing they did. The walk back was painful – steep, long, hot, and we were running out of water. While we were resting on the “seat made by God,” we saw horses heading uphill toward us. There were 10, two regular horses (for lack of a better description) and eight work horses. It looked like they may have brought a load of something to the bottom of the mountain because the work horses all had empty baskets over their backs (one basket on each side). The two regular horses had riders on them, one rider in the front and the other in the middle of the pack. I told the guy in the front that I’d be way too chicken to ride a horse up that steep path. He said I should try it when the berries are out. That’s when the bears come out and the horses get spooked. He said you have to be ready to jump off your horse if it looks like the horse is going over the edge. Lovely.
On the path that led from the summit to the van, Parker, Cal, and I got way ahead of Trey and Jeff. We stopped and waited for them, and when they finally appeared I yelled to them, “Where have you been?” Jeff looked up to respond, and proceeded to twist his ankle on a rock in the middle of the path. It was France all over again, where he twisted his ankle within 15 minutes of arriving in Paris. This time, like then, he continued despite the pain. Parker and I ran ahead to get the van, which was almost a mile beyond the trailhead. We figured we could save Jeff at least that much of a walk.
After I’d picked up Jeff, Cal, and Trey at the trailhead, I started to drive away. The road was very narrow, so when a truck came into view, I backed up to let him pass. Did I get a thank you wave? No. A little farther along on the same road, I again stopped to let a girl walk across the bridge that didn’t seem wide enough for her and my van. Again, no thank you wave. What’s up with people? Is a wave that hard?
While Jeff was riding in the passenger seat he noticed that the handle over the door was broken. I told him I wasn’t surprised considering Trey had been hanging from it with his full body weight just the day before.
As we headed back to camp we saw more people pulled over to the side of the road. They were photographing some animal we’d seen before. We all turned up our noses at stopping for a photo. We’ve seen so many fascinating things, and our standards have become so high, we said we weren’t stopping for anything short of a bull moose. Or a pronghorn, which we hadn’t seen yet, but did see later on this car ride back to camp. It was along the highway, but I pulled over to the side anyway. While Parker got a picture of the pronghorn, I got a long, nasty honk from a passing car. I didn’t even react (I’m that tired). Ya know what, if you don’t like people stopping to take photos of the wildlife, don’t go where the wildlife is awesome.
We had Dinty Moore beef stew for dinner. Cal didn’t eat. He fell asleep as soon as we got back to camp. I headed out for the laundromat to work on my uploading of photos. Jeff had dropped me off there, so he had to come pick me back up. Apparently, just as he left to get me, Cal vomited from his top bunk bed, and Trey went running down the road after Jeff to call him back to clean it up. I guess Cal did feel really bad on the hike. I walked most of the way back to camp, but it was a nice night out so the walk felt good.
Sleep would come easily.
For corresponding photos, go to:
http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=1832394027/a=2740108027_2740108027/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/
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