2004 August

We spend the day “preparing” for our Wind River trip. Mostly this involves playing Rummy and watching movies at the house. We don’t leave once during the day. Our self indulgence has reached a peak.

Our movies were chosen based on books we’ve read recently. Ann read Cider House Rules. She couldn’t help being disappointed by all the material from the book that was left out of the movie, but agreed with me that the movie is done well. The author, John Irving, wrote the screenplay, so his quirky characters and dark probing of contentious social issues are well represented in the movie.

Both of us have read The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. Again the author was very involved in the making of the movie, to great advantage. The challenge of packing the stories of eight characters into a movie is huge, but this one pulls it off. The material that doesn’t make it in is easily compensated for by seeing the characters and settings for the stories.

Today we walk six miles of busy street. Three miles to a movie theater and back. It’s actually a nice way to watch a movie. The exercise before helps you relax during the show, and more afterward gives you time to contemplate it. Before the show the popcorn girl at the theatre takes our picture for us.

The movie we watch is Hero, the Jet Li kung fu epic. It’s very beautiful visually. The story line purports to be historical, about how the king of the Qin province unites China. The movie is done as a sort of fairy tale or legend though, which makes the historical assertions ring a little of propaganda. But even if you completely ignore the “moral” of the story, the visual feast is enough to fill up on.

Near Jackson Hole, WY

I’ve chosen a destination for our pack trip into the Wind River range next week. It’s a large basin tucked away near the divide in the middle of the range. I’ve never been anywhere near it. Dragon Head Peak rises up over Lee Lake there in a set of cliffs that look steep on the topo map. I’m excited about it.

Considering the breakdown of Ann’s hiking shoes, we think of trying the backpack trip with sandals for trail and boots for cross-country hiking. Ann’s sandals are already pretty shabby, though, so we break down and go looking for new shoes for her.

We notice that trail shoes these days seem to be incredibly ugly across the board. Men’s shoes come in ‘bold’ colors like electric blue and black, while the women’s are pastels with a hundred shades of baby blue. The ugly factor combined with the fact that Ann doesn’t really want new trail shoes makes for less than thrilling shopping. In the end she finds a pair of Solomons on sale that feel okay, and are mostly gray. She wears them out of the store, and we go straight up to the top of the Snow King ski area, a 1500-ft climb. They work well enough, she thinks. Her feet ache a little when we get back to the house. Mine do too, for that matter, so maybe it’s normal.

Near Colter Bay, WY

Today we actually make it to Two Ocean Lake. At last the sky is mostly clear and the Tetons are visible. It’s hard to believe they could ever be obscured by anything. These mountains are so majestic they look almost unreal, overdone. They trap your eye and mind into an entranced stare, scanning for some detail that will reveal the peaks as a giant painting in the sky, or a shimmering dream. It’s no surprise that many vehicles weave and slow to a crawl on the long stretch of highway at the foot of this range. Herds of bison and elk enhance the effect.

Our six mile loop around the lake is blissful. My body still protests the activity, but it’s getting better. Ann spots two white dots across the lake – more trumpeter swans. There are very few people on this trail. We agree it would be a good lake for canoeing as well as hiking. The only downer is that the new insoles have not saved Ann’s shoes. They still make her feet ache painfully after only a mile or two. She finishes the hike in her sandals.

Near Jackson, WY

Today we set out to walk around Two Ocean Lake, but after stopping in town to do one errand, then another, we never make it. To prevent statufication from setting in we walk back to town later to buy a trail map of the southern Wind River Range. We’re planning a backpack trip in this range with my dad next week, but we still haven’t chosen a destination. Earlier we bought some cheap insoles for Ann’s shoes because the arches have collapsed. We hope this will be enough to get them through one more pack trip.

Near Jenny Lake, WY

I know from other physical endeavors that when I stop working my body all day long I tend to fall into a catatonic state, oscillating between eating and sleeping. Once I’ve entered this state it becomes more and more difficult to escape it. The only way to remain semi-functional is to force myself to perform some form of exercise every day. You might think that since I’m in good shape from all my hiking that this would be easy, but it’s not. My limbs feel like they’re made of lead. The more effort I put into moving, the heavier they feel. Every other breath becomes a yawn.

Today we drive to Jenny Lake at the foot of the Grand Teton. It’s cloudy again. The mountains are still invisible, except for a single spire on Mount Teewinot. The lake is an attraction in Grand Teton National Park, with pontoons ferrying people across the lake continuously for $7.50 a pop. The boat only saves two miles of walking, so a fair number of people brave the trail with us. It soon starts raining, and I’m surprised to see tourists dressed entirely in cotton clothing continue determinedly down the trail. I yawn and yawn while putting on my raingear.

Hidden Falls is the big attraction on the far side of the lake. We make the short climb to look at them, but we’re really here for the exercise. There are berry bushes everywhere, and signs warning about bears. It would be interesting to see how all these people would react to a bear visit, but I wouldn’t wish it on the bear.

There are far fewer people on the longer part of the loop around the lake. One family coming the other way announces proudly that they’ve come all the way from the visitor center. Only the brave and intrepid would choose this way around. I’m still yawning a bit, feeling better but not quite intrepid.

After a few more miles of rainy hiking, we finish the loop of about 8 miles. I feel better, more alert, but extremely stiff and inflexible. Stretching my seized-up muscles seems to take more effort than walking. I wonder what would happen to me if I didn’t make myself walk and stretch. It feels like I would become a statue, a memorial that could be placed to forever mark my stopping point on the CDT.

Near Jackson, WY

Again the rain continues through the night and into the morning. Someone nearby starts an engine and lets it idle. It’s kind of noisy and smelly. When I get up I wander over to complain, but when I see what it is I change my mind. A family in jeans and a cheap tent have gotten soaked by the rain. They huddle in their van to get warm, steaming up the windows. I’m not cold, but I get into our car to escape the rain. I turn on the radio. Ann soon pokes her head out of the tent to yell at me – my radio is twice as loud as the idling van. Oops.

We pack everything up wet and drive to Jackson Hole. The Tetons are hidden by clouds, not a hint of mountain to be seen.

In Jackson we have to locate both post offices, the one that does not do general delivery of course is the more obvious, convenient location. Hikers who get dropped off downtown would almost need another ride to reach the other post office. We drive there and pick up a house key. The key is to Ann’s uncle Jon’s house, where we plan to live indoors for a while in true honeymoon luxury.

With this resumption of indoor life the reality that life on the trail has ended begins to sink in. Things like the number of dishes and surfaces that require cleaning after preparing a meal seem out of proportion and somewhat absurd. Things like a fridge that makes ice instead of consuming it, a coffee maker, a stereo, hot baths, and movies on a soft couch seem like the height of decadence. Sleeping indoors, even in the best bed, seems hot and stuffy. It’s all confusing, but also pleasurable and restful.

Near Mammoth Hot Springs, WY

We enter Yellowstone, the first of all the national parks. From the monstrous library of literature available on the park, we have purchased one of the smallest and most recent books, Lost in my Own Backyard by Tim Cahill. It provides enough of an introduction to the park to make us appreciate some basic facts about it. Perhaps the most striking is that we are driving and walking around in the giant caldera of an active volcano. This volcano is unique, poorly understood, and could erupt again at any time, ending civilization as we know it. Neat.

We haven’t been in the park five minutes when we pass a majestic bald eagle perched on its nest and a massive buffalo grazing by the road. Stopped cars jam the road completely at each such site. Tourists with cameras inevitably jump out of their cars, ignoring the warning pamphlets handed to everyone at the park entrance showing a buffalo goring a photographer. We have joined the throngs, a fact we try to embrace as we crawl along the park roads.

The section of park along the road from the west entrance to the south entrance keeps us busy and enthralled all day long. It’s like we’re driving and walking on a thin crust floating on a giant pot of boiling water. Steam shoots out of the ground everywhere, hissing, bubbling through mud, spraying streams straight up into the air, and collecting in boiling lakes. Of all the amazing spectacles, I think I’d choose the Fountain Paint Pot, Sapphire Pool, and White Dome Geyser on Firehole Lake Drive as my favorites. The White Dome Geyser seemed special because it erupted like a miniature volcano for us just as we arrived. Of course Old Faithful goes on the list almost by default – who would skip it?

Most of our walks are short outings on boardwalks, but by the late afternoon we’ve accumulated quite a few miles. I feel as tired as if I’d trekked 25 miles on the CDT. We cross the divide three times on the way to Lewis Lake Campground. There we have just enough time to make dinner before rainy weather returns, chasing us into the tent.

The storm continues wildly all night long. Our tent is hit by gusts of wind from every direction, as if the storm can’t make up its mind which way to go.

In the morning we pack everything up wet, pile in the car, and get on the muddy road. Once we go over Red Rock Pass, the road is flanked by mansions on either side all the way to Clark Lake, where we see a flock of pelicans spiraling overhead.

In West Yellowstone we take refuge in the Riverside Café for breakfast. The storm shows no sign of letting up. West Yellowstone is a town made up almost entirely of motels, so we go looking for a room. We get just as tired doing this as we might have hiking, and end up next door to the place we had breakfast.

Holed up in our room, we turn on the Olympic coverage and peek out the door now and then. The storm always looks different, pouring for awhile, then blowing, but always looking like a storm. We sneak out for a salad and groceries once, then snuggle up again. It seems like a good time for our second night indoors this month.

In the library in Salmon we caught up with some other CDT hikers through their online journals. We speculate that Roni, a northbound CDT hiker from Israel, will arrive at this pass soon. He�s been feeling tired and lonely lately, so we leave him a note and some goodies tied to a post near the trail.

After reconnecting with I-15 we arrive in Lima, another supply town. Not much here would interest a hiker besides the café and convenience store. A few miles further up the interstate is Monida, which looks like a ghost town except for one inhabited home. Here we take off on a long dirt road that runs just north of the divide.

We stop in a free campground in the Red Rock Wildlife Refuge. It has a beautiful piped spring and is right on the large Upper Lake. We walk along the road past MacDonald Lake, where a trumpeter swan family has taken up residence. This is one of many instances I have regretted not accepting my optician friend Randy’s offer of a pair of field glasses. At the time I was too worried about the weight, but now it doesn’t matter. We strain to get a good look at these huge nesting birds. A pamphlet at the campground says they can attain a wingspan of 8 feet. They mate for life, and spend months teaching their young to fly.

We try to be social in the evening, roasting corn in our neighbor’s fire. When a fierce rainstorm hits, though, we end up munching our corn while sitting in the car. The storm shows no sign of letting up at bedtime when we make a run for the tent.