Glacial Erratics

_{Gottrfied Lake}

My fourth night up I was furtively camping in a place I really shouldn’t have been, very near a trail juncture next to Gottfried Lake, which is really just melted snow trapped in a pocket between a bunch of mountains. The Forest Service asks that you not camp within 200 feet of a trail or water source, but this was the only flat spot I could find as night fell, and in the Winds there is water literally everywhere. Anyway, I hadn’t seen anyone for four days, and didn’t think my campsite was going to bother anyone.

But sure enough, the next morning just before sunrise I heard a noise coming down the trail, and judging by the racket it had to be somebody with a pack horse; there is not a creature in Nature that makes that much noise. I just laid there in my sleeping bag, listening to these rocks getting kicked and things banging around, and I thought “geez, it’s not even light yet; this guy would have had to have gotten on the trail hours ago.” So I popped out of my tent in the faint light, and met the world’s clumsiest mule deer. If there was a rock in his path he stumbled over it, and I swear he actually tripped a bit at one point. But then he looked up and realized he was not alone, and instantly assumed a more deerlike demeanor and bounded off.

_{Ice coating the INSIDE of my tent}

I think this is the latest in the year that I’ve ever taken an extended hike, and I was worried about the cold. After “do not break a leg,” “do not die of hypothermia” is next on my list of solo hiking rules. The forecast just before I left was for lows in the mid-20’s in Jackson, and I’d be higher up so I was a little intimidated. But it wasn’t that bad, and I was beginning to doubt that it was even freezing most mornings until I noticed the inside of my tent was covered in thick frozen frost.

It is just cool to walk in these places. I simply like to walk. There is no logic to it. I carry just what I need to live for however long I plan on being out, and then I walk in these amazing places we are blessed with in this country. You see wondrous things, and if you are fortunate meet wonderful people. The picture above is near Elbow Lake, and those are called “glacial erratics.” The big one in the foreground, the one that looks like the chair in George Jetson’s living room, is taller than me–you have to re-set your references for everything in the mountains. A glacial erratic is a big rock that a glacier just left in some preposterous spot many thousands of years ago, and this part of the Winds is littered with them. You look at these giant rocks that couldn’t have fallen from any nearby peak or been pushed there by a river, and you just shake your head and say “how did this get here?,” and you feel so fortunate to be there.

I was disappointed with myself this trip. I am constantly so grateful for my body; it does amazing things for me, carries my brain where it desires to go. But I found I was moving at a glacial pace the first few days; I kept saying “any slower, and physics won’t be able to explain your forward motion, George.” I resent growing old, although I accept it. But then near the end, somewhere above Palmer Lake near Doubletop Mountain, I looked back and saw where I’d been two days before (the little arrow above the peak in the middle), and thought only “How did I get here?”

Bear Poop

So, about those bears: I could be wrong. I came across this pile of black bear poop (the bear is black, not the poop) somewhere along the trail between Summit Lake and Dean Lake, which is a new part of the Wind River Range for me. That scat looks like it’s at least 5-6 days old–I’m not showing off my mountainman skills by saying that, it’s just that I’ve seen still steaming-fresh black bear poop before and I’m extrapolating from that. Still, you don’t see the fauna here you see almost constantly in more protected national park backcountry such as Glacier. In a single day there I have seen close-up mountain goats, bighorn sheep, moose, deer, bear, eagles, and elk. Here, I am fortunate to see poop.

I deeply enjoy being in a place where I am not the apex predator. And I don’t need to actually see them, I just like knowing that they are there, and that they are so much better at being there than I am. It keeps you humble, and helps you find your place in the world you are passing through. They are to me a natural resource, like timber or oil, but worth so much more than their meat or mounted head. When they are gone, they are truly gone. And with them, a part of who we are as a species.

In the Winds you can get up high and be alone fairly quickly, but it’s a lot of work first to get there. I’ve always said things don’t turn cool until you’re at least one day out from a trailhead, but even before that long first day’s lightening-filled night I knew I was pretty alone. That’s the attraction of hiking solo in wild places, the knowledge that a certain amount of risk is present, and no one to help you if things go wrong. But then once you’re actually out there, all you can think is “don’t mess up.” I don’t know how many times I repeated to myself this trip “Solo Hiker’s Rule Number 1: do not break a leg.”

_{You can see the fresh snow on the peaks in the background, my destination for the following day.}

I sort of mis-calculated the effort involved in “getting up high” this year; I made only eight miles horizontally my second day, but 2,000 ft. vertically following Clark Creek. Once you leave the valley of the New Fork River, the entire rest of your day is spent walking uphill until you get to the ridge above Clark Lake. I had expected colder weather, and so my pack was a little fuller than usual with extra calories and foul weather gear, and believe me when I say that the longer you walk uphill, the heavier each extra ounce becomes. But as relieved as I was at that point to finally stop walking uphill, when I got to the top and saw the mountains before me that I was headed for dusted in fresh snow, I reflexively said “oh shit.”

Entering Bear Country

Well, no, you’re not. This was my third trip to the Wind River Range, and I promise you there are probably no resident Grizzly Bears. There are Black Bears in there somewhere, but you’re probably also not going to see one. This is the difference between a National Park and a National Forest. More on this later. I’ve flown in to Jackson Hole each trip and rented a car for the hour and a half drive south following the Hoback River down to Pinedale. It is a strange drive, because the Hoback is right next to the highway and in places you will appear to be driving uphill yet the river is clearly flowing the same way. I’ve yet to figure out the physics on this. But it’s a beautiful drive, an overwhelming place. It is all mountains and surprising prairies between them and austerity. Wyoming is not yet conquered.

That night there was a lightening storm, and it was so cool to be right up there in it. From inside my little tent, it’d flash and it was like it was right there, like right there outside. You got to hear Nature come at you.

The next morning I lay there in my sleeping bag, waiting for the sun to rise above the surrounding mountains and warm things up. I’m sort of a pussy about getting up cold and wet if I don’t have to, so I just lay there, waiting for something so much bigger than me to get things going. But I finally crawled out into the wet morning, knowing I’d get soaked just walking a few feet to pee. And then that sun came up in that clear, clear sky above the mountains all around me. At first, I didn’t understand what was happening: I could see steam or smoke or mist rising on the other side of the stream, but I didn’t understand what it was. But I watched it coming my way, like a wave, like a wall–a wall of fog rising with the advancing morning sun. It was an amazing way to wake up.

I got to see Nature come right at me.