A little more cross country gets us onto an old trail that leads us to the road to Togwotee Pass. Lest we have a day of easy hiking, we attempt to find an alternate trail to Brooks Lake and spend half the route bushwhacking to a high, spectacular gap near Sublette Mountain. From there we…

The hiking feels uncharted today, despite our complete dependence on maps. We follow blazed snowmobile trails along the divide, then a long trail almost impossible to walk on due to thousands of elk footprints dried in the dirt. A little road provides some relief, then it’s back to elk trail. Finally we walk an old…

Pete and I set off on this segment on our own, curious what the country will be like north of the Wind Rivers. The trails definitely see much less use, and we get off course once when I don’t pay close enough attention. The best section is an alternate we take at the end of…

It’s my 37th birthday! I take a rest day with the family, eating cakes and drinking beer. This might help prevent a full recovery of my digestive systems, despite the rest day, but I enjoy it!

Today the only pressure is to not be too late to the trailhead, where my Dad and Sarah are supposed to join Bob and Carol to greet us. The early day goes slowly as we have to pick our way slowly down some frozen snowfields, but once we’re on dirt trail again the hiking is…

The question of the day is whether there will be too much snow on the far side of Shannon Pass to make it over and down the other side. If so, we’ll have at least three extra miles of rough terrain to cover to circumvent it, and probably more the way the miles have been…

We hike for miles through the lake-dotted, glacially sculpted plateau of the western Wind River range. Long miles – each one seems to take us nearly an hour. Lots of small climbs and descents. It’s getting late by the time we reach North Fork Lake, but we press on toward Hat Pass. It’s 8 pm…

We had concocted a plan where I would take off on my own into the Cirque of the Towers today, but since I’m still not feeling fully recovered from my illness I cancel it. It’s nice to stay with the group and see Ann’s parents at our Big Sandy resupply. Swarms of mosquitoes have started…

I’m still feel a little sick in the morning, but able to hike. On our way out of camp a Moose crossed the road in front of us. We meet an excited trail crew on their way out, with news about some almost-finished new CDT tread to Big Sandy. We consider trying it, but opt…

Ann is with us again, and we meet San Gabriel in South Pass City, a northbounder headed for Lander to resupply. He hikes to the highway with us and swaps a few tales. My breakfast is not sitting well, and gets worse through the day of navigating small backroads. By the end I only want…