Zero day in Lander on day 60. Was very successful at doing nothing all day. Just kept my shin elevated and iced most of the day.

Day 61, got a ride out to the trail with a trail angel Chance has been staying with in town, Bill, around lunch time. We ran into A-Bear chatting with a police officer where the trail crossed the highway. Turns out everything was fine, the PO was giving him water. Bill drove A-Bear back in to Lander, so that was cool.

We walked and chatted, catching up since we hadn’t walked together in a week. We just followed a series of jeep roads, although we started in private property so we had to jump a barbed wire fence or two to get on track. It’s pretty damn flat out here, basically desert. Looking to the horizon, this is it for the next hundred miles. I don’t even mind, easy sounds OK right now.

The only problem is water! We stopped at dinner time at a water pump powered by a windmill. The only trick was it doesn’t pump out accessibly, but into a locked tank. We were able to get in to the pump and by jamming a handkerchief into a certain spot, get the water gushing out onto the ground temporarily. Then the wind died and we had to wait for it to pick up before the water would pump again. This could be our new game, kinda like tilting windmills.

The rest of the evening flew by, I didn’t want to stop, but I ran out of light. I may have to do some night hiking to beat the heat in the next few days as it’s been well over 30C for the last 3 days.

Daily Summary
Date: Aug 23, 24, 2011
Day 60, 61
Daily Distance: 17 miles
Trip Distance: 1167 miles

Turned out there wasn’t a trail to follow last night, so today I just kept rolling down the valley. Eventually I had to climb out and then down out of the Winds. My legs were not happy with the climb at all, totally rubbery.

Out of the Winds, and down into grasslands, completely different! I was suddenly on smooth jeep roads, and I motored all the way to the highway that leads to Lander. Overall the day couldn’t help but be a let down after all of yesterdays highlights.

I got a great room at a little motel, then ate a bunch (shocking!) I had trouble sleeping, then got woken up by a kind of giant siren or klaxon maybe… at 1am. Turns out it was a call for the volunteer firefighters to come to a fire. So loud.

Daily Summary
Date: Aug 22, 2011
Day 59
Daily Distance: 29.2 miles
Trip Distance: 1150 miles

I woke up early with condensation starting to drip off my tent and on to me. Quickly packed up and got going, on what was probably the warmest morning of the whole trail so far… and I was camped at over 10,000 feet!

There was lots of climbing to be done today, but mostly in smaller chunks with descents between each. I was walking along early and it seemed like my trail dead-ended into a lake… which I then realized was a really wide creek! It didn’t turn out to be too deep, but I put together that this was the creek all the northbounders had told me was their hardest crossing. I can imagine how bad it would have been early in the season.

I caught up with Hui again after that and he talked through all the climbs, telling me about his photography gallery/website and other stuff. He is a forester in NYC…he basically deals with keeping their trees healthy and putting in new ones.

The rest of the day was just more slogging for me. Except for the last few miles, all day was on the same annoying rocky terrain as yesterday, killing my shin. I did give it a good soak at dinner though, which really helped.

I’m going to bed now, in my most sheltered camp in days which is perfect because it is thundering outside and there are very big black clouds rolling in. So glad to be in my tent! On a related note, I am slowly becoming the Karate Kid of “mosquitos in my tent” killing. Picture me with chopsticks, except I’m so good I can do it with fingers, killing the stray mozzys that manage to get in my tent with me.

Daily Summary
Date: Aug 20, 2011
Day 57
Daily Distance: 22.9 miles
Trip Distance: 1099.2 miles

Walked beside the Green River most of the morning, so named because it really is quite green. I caught up to Hui as we climbed towards our first pass of the day and we stopped for lunch together. Had a nice chat, he filled me in on a lot of the fun that’s happened in towns and on the trail.

After lunch we got above 10,000 feet and stayed there the rest of the day. We spent a lot of the afternoon climbing three passes. We crossed the headwaters of the Green River which was neat. At the second pass, I caught up with Chance and it was fine. It seems we are not going to be hiking together anymore, but I think we’re both OK with it.

Climbing the last pass called Shannon, I was running out of gas but the views kept me going. On the other side, it was a much more gradual decline, but on terrible, rocky/muddy trail. My shins were not amused. I stopped early for dinner and used a snowbank to ice down my shin, which was a big help. Finally, I’m camped by a little lake that is swarming with mosquitos (it sounds like it’s raining they are bouncing off my tarp so often!). Regardless, beautiful.

Daily Summary
Date: Aug 19, 2011
Day 56
Daily Distance: 21.7 miles
Trip Distance: 1076.3 miles

Had a very restful sleep, beat my alarm clock awake by a fair margin. The start of the morning was rough, my shin was not feeling good at all! I hobbled for the first while until the ibuprofen kicked in and then I ran into an awesome northbounder named Flaxseed. He was older and “only” doing northern Colorado and Wyoming. He’s from Texas and we chatted for a bit about trail conditions both ways. I asked him if he had a tensor bandage to spare (compression for the shin splints), and he had something better! He gets shin splints sometimes as well so he carries a shin/ankle compression band, and he gave it to me! It was so nice of him and really helped the rest of the day.

After we went our separate ways, I hit a great wide open plateau with views of the Winds and Tetons. The rest of the morning was spent walking in lowlands towards the Winds, generally not on any trails.

In the afternoon I got onto brand new trail (later confirmed to be built this year). Soon after I met two more NB hikers, Robert and Jason. They were very concerned about getting lost and not too excited when I told them there wasn’t too much trail to the north.
I slowly climbed my way up to Gunsight Pass, mostly in forests. When I hit the pass, it all opened up and I was in the Winds!

Coming down the pass was brutal on my shin. I finally got to the bottom and met some more hikers, Jeff, his partner (name forgotten), and Hui (who I last saw in East Glacier!). I sat down with them and had dinner (they had caught fish and were frying them up on a fire). Hui updated me on the locations of a bunch of hikers, apparently I passed a few going into and out of Dubois. I had thought I was the last one!

I popped over a ridge after dinner then had another long, painful descent into Green River. Amazing views all around though, with a setting sun too! I also saw a fox jump out of a bush 15 feet in front of me, then run off as soon as it saw me. Very red, with a bushy white tail, but also quite small… Anyways, very neat end to the day!

Daily Summary
Date: Aug 18, 2011
Day 55
Daily Distance: 26.3 miles
Trip Distance: 1054.6 miles

Apparently 2 donuts is not a good bedtime snack. I was a little jittery and had trouble falling asleep in the motel. In the morning I was out trying to hitch back to the trail before 9, and eventually got a ride just before 10. The guy driving me had an open beer in his lap and offered me one… at 10am. He had another while we were driving. Not my favourite ride ever, but it got me to the trail…

The guidebook describes the hike as being really beautiful but I think since the author walked things have changed a bit. There are now some dirt and gravel roads through the area that ruin the perception of the area as pristine. Anyways, the hiking was still nice just not amazing.

In the afternoon my shin started really bugging me, even through a bunch of ibuprofen. The trail followed a ridge top with a steep drop on one side and neat views off the other. I can feel the Winds getting closer :). I’m a little nervous about whether I can hike through the pain or not, but I guess the answer is that I will… I just might not enjoy it!

Daily Summary
Date: Aug 17, 2011
Day 54
Daily Distance: 22.6 miles
Trip Distance: 1028.3 miles

No problems with bears last night! Woke up to frozen socks and shoes, but not bad enough I couldn’t get them on. I had a quick walk across a big meadow to Brooks Lake, with a big ranch/lodge beside it. I scared a herd of elk as I got close.

I worked my way past the lodge on their trails and roads, saw some cowgirls working on the horses, then I was off up a closed gravel road. I climbed up to a great viewpoint looking south towards the Winds, then bushwhacked down to the highway.

This was supposed to be the hardest hitch on the trail, down to Dubois. I settled in to wait, unfortunately in between two sets of road construction. Barely any cars were going by, but pretty quickly a nice lady from Colorado stopped and gave me a ride all the way to town!

I did my usual chores, planning to head back out quickly, but mid-afternoon decided to stay. I’ve been battling some minor shin splints the last 2 days, and I really don’t want to start the Winds (a big, hard section) injured. Not that one night in a motel will cure me, but it can’t hurt!

I spent the evening icing my shin, talking to home and fiddling on the Internet.

Daily Summary
Date: Aug 16, 2011
Day 53
Daily Distance: 5 miles
Trip Distance: 1005.7 miles

Chance never showed up where I was camped last night, so I finally had my first solo night on the trail! It went fine :). Last couple days he’s been a bit behind me, and we were probably going separate ways tomorrow anyways. I have to resupply in a town and he has a box waiting at a lodge on the trail… And the hitch to town, Dubois, is apparently quite hard. Anyways, it was a good run we had, maybe we’ll meet up again down the trail awhile.

The morning hike was a little bit harder without Chance – there is a “test” river crossing that supposedly tells you which way to go. I got to it and decided it looked OK, but normally Chance would have been there and walked right across. Anyways, it was fine, so I was able to follow the normal route instead of going around with bridges.

At lunch I managed to spill a bit of fish oil from some smoked salmon on myself and boy did it stink! After lunch it started raining, then hailing big enough I didn’t want to walk in it, luckily I was right beside a big enough tree to wait it out under. After the first wave played itself out, I hiked on but got caught by another one an hour later. Bigger hail, but again a nice tree. I got tired of waiting so hiked on, got soaked, eventually hiked out of it though!

I skipped my normal dinner and just kept hiking as the sky was still dribbling. I got close to the end of the section and was contemplating going for the end tonight, but as I came over a rise, I could see a bear in the meadow below. Plan B became camp where I was, have dinner far from camp, and finish up the hiking in the morning.

So now I’m camped out alone for night two, I smell like fish, and there’s a bear nearby. I’m going to sleep like a baby…

Daily Summary
Date: Aug 15, 2011
Day 52
Daily Distance: 28 miles
Trip Distance: 1000.7 miles

Started out with a double stream ford, so I got nice and wet for my morning hike. The whole morning was spent hiking upstream on the Snake River, which turned out to be a bit boring. The whole area burned in the Yellowstone fire of ’88, so it was a bit bleak.

After lunch, we had a small climb – 1400 feet in one go, and it was surprisingly difficult. I think probably yesterday’s long miles caught up to me a bit. I had to take a couple 5 minute breaks, and my legs were just protesting the whole way up. It turned out to be totally worth it though! There were great views of the surrounding mountains and back towards the Tetons.

The descent from the plateau went my something neat called the Parting of the Waters. It’s a stream that splits right by the trail, one fork goes to the Pacific (1500 miles away) and the other to the Atlantic (3500 miles!). Very cool. From there the trail turns into a horse super-highway. It even has multiple lanes! I ended up pulling to the aide after a couple miles and calling it a night.

Daily Summary
Date: Aug 14, 2011
Day 51
Daily Distance: 29 miles
Trip Distance: 972.7 miles