Day 59 – 65 Back to the CDT

This is a somewhat ad hoc trip across the Gros Venture wilderness to get back to the CDT after the Tetons.

Day 59 Pt 2

I did manage the in and out ‘hero’ resupply in Jackson. Which seemed like a cool but expensive town. Walking out of town and far enough up the trail for camping to, I think, be legal. Oh, and on the way out I saw this.

Day 60

Slept in a bit for this easier, relative to the Tetons, day. Not a huge amount of climbing for the 24ish miles, but… it was pretty much all at once. Climbed for 6-7 miles and then went downhill for the remainder of the day. Also, pretty hot.

Tomorrow will be the same story; last climb before the winds but it’s something like 3,500′ of gain. Bigger than pretty much any of the passes in Glacier or the Tetons.

Ended the day at a campground with a hot spring pool. Which was unusual to see after popping out of the woods. And a fee campground. Convenient for getting rid of trash, bear box, etc. Also, that massive climb starts right out of the campground, so there isn’t much of an option anyhow.

Hiking around Windu and Skiggles who I ran into (again) in Jackson. As we were hanging out after dinner a storm rolled in. We got into our tents just in time. The gusts when the storm rolled in were pretty strong, and as I seem to always do, I had set the tent up at 90 degrees to the wind. Guess the dry days are over for now.

Day 61

The climb for the day took awhile but wasn’t too hard. And it had some pretty nice views.

The Gros Venture wilderness has some pretty cool mountains. And loads of granite cliffs.

The descent was… very long. We followed the Gros Venture river all the way out of the wilderness area. Slower than expected going due to some pretty intense overgrown car wash sections. And various river crossings. One of which required a ford through sucking mud. Glad I didn’t lose my sandals. Someone did so now I have a sandal to pack out.

 

Tomorrow will see me get back to the official cdt.

Day 62

First 30 of the trip! And felt pretty good for pretty much all of it. It was more of a navigation challenge than I expected as some of the dirt roads I used when planning this route across the valley were either small overgrown paths. Or just not there period.

One section I just bushwhacked thru the sage. Which worked great except I after I had to pick tons of burrs out of my socks.

I returned to the CDT at Green Lakes campground. Haven’t seen other thru hikers since parting with Windu and Skiggles this morning. Though Green Lakes and the nearby trail were fairly crowded with weekenders. It’s a bit of an odd ego boast to go flying past them. Hiking every day for two months has results, though.

Anyhow, pretty happy with the day. It set me up pretty well to climb over Knapsack Col tomorrow. Which will be the highest pass of the trail thus far. And one without an actual trail; the official CDT goes a slightly different route.

Day 63

Climbing over Knapsack Col was the main goal for the day. Though early in the morning I doubted that would happen due to weather; it rained fairly steadily for a couple hours this morning. I waited it out and got a late start (8:30 ish). I do love being in a tent when it’s raining.

I thought about bypassing Knapsack Col if the weather was bad.

Though by the time I reached the trail junction for the bypass the weather had been ok for some time so I opted for climbing the Col.

And it was quite hard. Over 12k and lots of scrambling over and around boulders when I lost the trail or after the trail ended. The descent was a talus/scree field followed by snow and then a very wet glacial moirane (sp?). It went well though.

 

 

Took awhile but the only adverse incident was somehow poking a hole in my tent fly with my trekking pole, whoops. Non critical area, and I’ll be able to fix it in town, at least.

Going into Pinedale tomorrow. I’m looking forward to zeroing there; this Teton alternate has beaten me up a bit. Also, it’s supposed to storm that day so it’ll be a good day to be in town.

Day 64

That was not the best night of sleep ever. Somehow lost one of my earplugs in the tent for most of the night which wasn’t an issue until it became really windy. Eventually, I was annoyed enough to actually search for it and found it. But then realized it was 5 am and didn’t go back to sleep.

Decided just to get an early start down to Pinedale. The actual hiking felt slow. Most of it was rocky. Reminiscent of hiking in New England. Hard to get in a rhythm on. Also I was just tired which is why I’m zeroing tomorrow so hopefully that helps. I did, finally, get a picture of a pika, though.

 

In town now at a rather adorable small hotel with bunkrooms that have quite well designed bunks. So far looks like a good place for a zero! Hana, Brock, and Pierre left shortly after I got there so it looks like I’ll be a day or two behind, again, for the next section. At dinner I did learn that Tangent is a big Brandon Sanderson fan and it we chatted for awhile. He’s my favorite author so it’s nice to meet another fan.

Day 65 – Zero in Pinedale

Lazy day I’ve been looking forward to since the Tetons.  Comfy bunk, cool inn.  One of my favorite places to stay so far on trail.