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The Wind River Range Day 2~The Dusty, Dirty Trail to Three River Forks
Each footstep stirred up a cloud of dust as we shuffled along the parched trail. Dust covered our legs and boots. Grit aggravated our noses and crunched like sandpaper in our mouths. John and I had failed to put on our gators at the trailhead. At the halfway point of the day's hike we were coveting Duane's dust covered gators, too tired and too dirty to don our own. Trailhead: Worthen Meadows Trails: Sheep Bridge Trail (3-miles) to Middle Fork Trail (approx 3.0-miles) 1st Night Campsite: Three River Forks
Thursday, August 28, 2003 Our day began at 7:15 am at Jedediah's Original House of Sourdough in Jackson Hole. Jedediah's, located in one of Jackson's earliest log cabins, should be on everyone's must stop list. We almost missed the experience because Will announced that HE had selected the morning's breakfast spot, Harvest Natural Foods Cafe. Will, our group's vegetarian is always on the lookout for gastronomical delights of the tofu kind. My most vivid memory of Will is from our Cumberland Island trip. I can still conjure up the vision of Will hand massaging a block of yellow stained tofu in an attempt to force the concoction to resemble scrambled eggs. He worked and worked the wad and the more he worked it, the more the bright yellow tofu squirted out between his fingers. Ugh! This vision keeps me from walking down the same grocery aisle with the stuff much less wanting to sit across the table from it. Lucky for the "carnivores" in our group (everyone else), the Harvest Natural Foods Cafe, displaying that laid back, casual atmosphere of tofu restaurants everywhere, opened late. By 9:00 am we were on the main highway headed to the Shoshone National Forest and the Wind River Range. Will, Barbara and John Finger were in the lead car while I, with my tummy full of blueberry pancakes smothered in huckleberry compote, a side of bacon and coffee (yum-yum) sat lazily in the 2nd car. My car companions, John and Duane were busy digesting their own chosen breakfast delights as we drove on Highway 191N past the Tetons and beyond the road leading to the southern entrance to Yellowstone. In the valley near the turnoff to Yellowstone a low cloud of morning fog appeared. Shortly an acid smell permeated the air and we realized that the fog was really smoke from nearby forest fires. This incident immediately brought to mind our "burned out" Canadian trip and we were grateful that the Wind River Range was not suffering from the fire plight affecting so much of the Canadian and western US forests.
The northern side of the Upper
Valley of the Wind River We continued on to the Upper Valley of the Wind River on Highway 26/287. The topography of the Upper Valley kept me glued to the car windows. Divided only by the highway, the northern and southern sections of the Wind River Valley were incredibly different. Brilliantly colored badlands line the northern side of the valley. These red lands hold fossil shellfish from a time when the cliffs were covered by ocean. The south side of the valley is filled with gray rocks and gravel left behind by glaciers that carved out deep canyons in the Wind River mountains. This desolate land is doted with a scruffy little green bush that appears to fade into the landscape. Horse ranches intermittently rule the valley on both sides of the highway. With few other choices for gas and a break, we stopped in Dubois. Dubois is a town of just under 1000 residents and is located in the Upper Wind River Valley. The town's claim to fame is the "world's largest bull skull" an the "jackalope". I am sure there must be a story behind each but the actual artifacts we saw were artificially created to attract tourists on their way to somewhere else. A tee shirt in the gas station we visited instructed us that the proper pronunciation for Dubois is not Dubose as we thought but "DuBoyz". Expensive homes dot the area and we wondered what people do for a living in DuBoyz and why they move to this desolate location in the first place. An 1-1/2 hour drive beyond
DuBoyz and an eight mile dusty drive up Lewis Lake Road (Forest Road 300) and we
arrived at the Worthen Meadow Reservoir parking lot, location of our trailhead.
A quick glance around the parking lot indicated that we would not be hiking
alone. We spoke with a group of aging hikers (just like us), three men, two
women and one dog who we hoped were coming off trail. But, like us, they were
just starting. Someone in the group indicated that they were from the Glacier National Park area looking for
a
hike away from the smoke and flames. Unfortunately their hiking route was almost the same as
ours so we knew we would be running into them on numerous occasions.
By 1:30 pm, we had shouldered our packs and were on the trail. Our day's destination, Three Forks Park, an open meadow overlooking the Popo Agie River. Our route took us along the Sheep Bridge Trail to Sheep Bridge (3-miles) where we picked up the Middle Fork Trail to Three Forks Park (another 3.0-miles). Easy day? No, not so easy.
At the trail head, from left John F., Will, Duane and John Remember the rocks and gravel from
the south side of the Wind River Valley? The surface of the Sheep Bridge Trail
looked like the desolate rocky valley. The rocks came in sizes from irritating fist size to
big boulders. The difficultly of the hiking surface was exacerbated by horse
traffic. We paid
close attention to where we stepped so as not to plant our boots in one of the
numerous piles of horse poop...sadly "leave no trace" practices do not apply to
horses. We stumbled a lot. Each footstep stirred
up a cloud of dust as we shuffled along the parched trail. Dust covered
our legs and boots. Grit aggravated our noses and crunched like sandpaper
in our mouths. John and I had failed to put on our gators at the
trailhead. At the halfway point of the
day's hike we were coveting
Duane's dust covered gators, too tired and too dirty to don our own.
We could never really get a hiking rhythm.
The scenery on our first day's hike was not too stimulating. The trails meandered through forests of Lodge Pole pines which meant the spectacular views were few. We sincerely hoped the next day's topography would take us out of the forest and above tree line although we did enjoy hiking beside the river and we were pleased that the crossings were all bridged. One of the highlights of the day was hiking through the beaver pond which was bridged with wooden walkways. Wooden walkways? Beavers? We led or followed the Glacier Group most of the afternoon. I remember at one point looking at the calves of the fastest Glacier woman as she hiked by. Massive!! The 2nd woman was on her first backpack as was her dog. Ugh, what a first backpack. I would probably never go on another hike.
Dusty, dirty boots! Beverly hiking on the "trail of rocks "
To say that I did not have difficulty breathing would be a lie. Our day's elevation gain was a slight 400' and I huffed and puffed the entire way. We were hiking at 8800' and in my usual trailhead adrenaline rush I hiked the first 3-miles way to-o-o fast. During the last 3-miles I paid dearly for this transgression while John with his bicycle legs and lungs had no visible problem. Duane, an accomplished mountaineer, blazed ahead of us all locating and surveying our camp meadow before anyone else even reached the destination. FINALLY, the rest of us arrived at
Three River Forks. I tossed my pack down and plopped myself on the end of
it for a rest. The last couple of miles had been tough for me and I still
had to summon up the energy to participate in camp set up and dinner
preparation. We had hiked only 4 hours but it felt like 8. I was surprised
to discover that I was less tired than John. We picked out a tent site,
put our gear down and headed down river to knock the dust off (the appropriate
200' from the water's edge).
Getting cleaned up gave us both a temporary boost of energy. John usually picks up the slack for me when I arrive in camp exhausted, tonight I picked up the slack for him. Our campsite was located in a meadow on the cliff above the Popo Agie River, our eating area at cliff's edge. We had 5 star seating overlooking the river, perfect for wildlife sightings except we didn't see any. This was the first encounter in the Wind Rivers for Duane, John and I. Will, Barbara and John Finger had been here before. Darkness embraced the the forest around 8:30 pm and the temperature dropped to a brisk 38° . We let out an audible ah-h-h as Mars, in it's oh so close encounter with the earth, seemed to pop above the trees, large, red and dominating everything in the sky. It was without a doubt a spectacular sight. We sat around the campfire trying to stay warm and chatting about things that we have in common, mostly hiking stories. Bedtime came early. Will peeled away first at 9:15, John Finger at 9:30, John and I followed shortly thereafter. John mentioned that he had a slight sore throat and we were hoping a good night's rest would be just the cure. Stomping around in the dust was the likely culprit but it could be early signs of a cold. We gazed up at the sky as we prepared for bed. The Big Dipper was right above our tent and stars completely filled the Wyoming sky. Duane was the last to go to his tent and we fell asleep to the sound of his humming.
Day 3~Oh Baby, It's Cold Out Here! Wind Rivers Photo Gallery
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"A river runs through it" the Popo Agie
River