Afternoon, Saturday, July 27, 2007
Well, I have some down time, so I figure I better at least try to get caught up.
On Wednesday, me and my dad took the 7 (7:30?) flight from Tucson to Salt Lake City. Once we arrived, we grabbed all our luggage and found Art so we could dump our bags in his car and go food shopping with him for the trip. After buying a ton of food, we headed to Art and Becky's house. Oh, first, for those of you who don't know Art and Becky, they're old family friends. They're really great people that live just out of Salt Lake. Anyway, we went to their house for lunch and to prepare our stuff to go on the horses that would be packing everything in to the Wind Rivers for us.
By 2:30 or so we were ready to leave, so we managed to get on the road by 3. We arrived in Pinedale at about 7, I think, and we ate dinner at a nice little restaurant on the main road in Pinedale. After dinner we drove to the camping area near the trail head that we'd be taking the next day. Art, Becky, my dad and I set up camp, and then got ready to go to sleep, because by that time it was getting pretty dark, and it was starting to lightly sprinkle.
The next morning, we got up fairly to eat and pack everything we taken out back up. We drove all our stuff maybe two minutes down the road to Mark. Mark is the owner of the horse-packing business that we were
using to get our stuff into the mountains. We've known him for a while, and he's super nice.Art, Becky, (and Merlin, their dog) and my dad were hiking in; I was riding in with Mark and the pack horses (and mules, it turned out). Mark packed all our stuff (as well as some other people who would be hiking in today) onto 2 horses and 2 mules (Cheyenne, his brother, whose name escapes me, Sarah Sue, and "Hee-Haw" Jim (see picture)) and I got on a horse named Tiggy and Mark got on his horse, and we rode out. About a quarter of the way there it started to dump buckets of rain and hail on us. Mark and I scrambled for our rain gear, and then rode on. It continued to rain pretty much non-stop until we got to camp, though it lightened up to a sprinkle after a while. However, I hadn't brought a very rain proof rain jacket, so I was more concentrated on staying warm than keeping up conversation, so the rest of the ride was a lot more silent than the first quarter had been.
But, despite that, the ride was gorgeous. There were so many beautiful things to look at...
Okay, enough for now...
Nighttime, Saturday, July 27, 2007
Anyway, Mark and I got to camp about 45 minutes to an hour after the hikers. Apparently they were worried. They had expected us to beat them to the camp site, and when we hadn't, they'd started to wonder. To tell you the truth, I'd expected to beat them as well, but the rain slowed us down, so it makes sense that we didn't.
Once we did get there we unloaded the horses and threw everything we could under tarps, trees, or the big boulder that is by our 'kitchen'. All four of us, then, rushed to put up our tents (despite that it was still raining) and throw the important things inside (clothes, sleeping bags, etc.). We hid wherever we could stay dry until the rain let up (by this time Mark was long gone, he was riding back home), and then we changed into dry clothes. We stayed outside for a short time, but when it began to rain again we went to take shelter in our tents. After a little longer, it let up again, and my dad and I ventured out to make pasta for dinner, before getting back into the tent to read until the sun went down. Luckily, Art and Becky volunteered to clean dishes, so after dinner we didn't have to get back out into the rain.
I'm really unused to the sun setting so late, about 9 or 9:30, I'd guess. It doesn't really get dark until 10. It's very different from little Rio Rico.
Okay, the quality of my handwriting is deteriorating the more I write, so I'm going to read. Night. =]
Late morning, Sunday, July 28, 2007
On Friday, everyone got up and just sat around for a while. Eventually we hung a clothesline up and got our wet things out to try and dry them before it rained again. Luckily it didn't rain, but we wanted to go for an easy hike, so we put our things back anyway, just in case. We ate lunch, then headed towards Wall Lake. The elevation (I live at 3900, the camp is about 10,300) makes doing any uphill walking or really any walking really hard, so we only got to the pass before Wall Lake before we decided to turn around after a little break and after we went over to the patch of snow that was nearby. The view was amazing. Sadly, I forgot my camera on the hike, so I don't have any pictures.
After hanging around the pass for a while we headed back, except Art who went to go explore and look at a mountain he and my dad and a friend of his was planning on climbing. We relaxed outside when we could and
in the tent when it rained. Art got back, then later we had a coos-coos dinner that Art and Becky made. We hung our and enjoyed being in the Wind Rivers. We had a beautiful sunset that night over Island Lake (see picture).The next day, Saturday, Art and my dad got up at 5:30 to go climb Mt. Helen. It's about a 2 hour hike or longer to the base of Mt. Helen, so they wanted to get an early start.
Becky and I, however, had a leisurely morning and went for a walk around Island Lake. I forgot to take my camera, again, but it was gorgeous. We ended up at this point across from this beautiful waterfall. We sat there for a while until we turned around to eat lunch.
What was really interesting about that walk was when we stopped this black-and-white butterfly kept landing on Becky and her backpack. We would talk loud and it wouldn't fly away, and once Merlin (the dog) stuck his nose up on it and it flew away, but then came right back. It was really neat.
Anyway, after that, Becky and I went back for lunch and to do whatever until 3.
My hand is getting tired again... Later.
Sunset, Sunday, July 28, 2007
First, let me say that the sunset tonight was gorgeous (see picture). My pictures can't do it justice, but it was amazing. Sigh.. Moments like these are exactly why I come out here.Anyhow, at 3 on Saturday, Becky and I were supposed to radio this guy named Mike. We had a walkie-talkie that Mike had loaned Art to make sure that he and the people he was hiking in with could find the camp. They got to camp just fine, and they had chosen the best day to hike. There were no clouds in the morning, and only a few clouds in the afternoon. I think we had a very light rain in the evening. The people who joined us are Mike, Mary, Jeff and his dog, J.D. Mike is a search-and-rescue guy, and he and Mary are dating. Jeff is this pro-climber/scientist dude. They're all super nice.
Okay, I wanna read, so goodnight.
Mid-afternoon, Monday, July 29, 2007
On Saturday, after everyone had gotten here and gotten their tents and such things set up, we hung out in the "kitchen" and waited for Art and my dad. After a while Mike and Jeff went out to meet them on their way back, and Becky and I started to make pizza for dinner just as they got back. They were pretty tired. By that time it was 8 or 8:30 and they had summited and managed to get back with a minimal amount of rain, luckily. They stayed up with Jeff, Mike and Mary pretty late that night, though, despite being tired.
Yesterday, when I woke up it was really warm and cloudless. In the late morning everyone except me and my
dad headed over to Elephant Head (see picture) because it was supposed to be a pretty easy climb. My dad and my plan was to top rope off some short cliffs that were near out camp so I could get some climbing in a practice rappelling. Since it was so hot out we didn't go until it was cloudy and the wind had picked up, which freaked me out even more than I was from the height, even though it really was that tall. 30 feet, maybe. I managed to get to the top and rappelling off twice, though, so I was proud.By the time we were done, Jeff and Art had joined us and everyone had gotten back. Some of them had made it top the top and others went as far as they'd wanted. We all hung out in the kitchen and my dad made enchiladas. We stayed up sort of late and had the breathtaking sunset I wrote about in my last entry. Wow, I'm finally on today! Awesomeeee.
So, today, my dad, Art and Jeff got up early again to go climb Ellingwood. About 6 or 6:30, I think, I saw someone (looking back, it was probably Art) walk by Becky and Art's tent. Not really seeing who it was I figured it meant that everyone was up, I got up. I ended up getting up 45 minutes or so before anyone else. Ah, well.
Well, since I'm sort of caught up I'm going to quit for now.
2:57 PM, Thursday, August 2, 2007
Well, we're back in the real world. Right now me and my dad are waiting in the Salt Lake Airport. And I'm falling asleep. We got home really late last night.It's weird. I was almost caught up with my writing and then all of a sudden I'm more than 3 days behind. Sigh. Let's see if I can get a little caught up.
So, on Monday I got up really early, and once everyone got up and got ready we left for a hike up Titcomb Basin. This was, of course, minus Art, my dad and Jeff, leaving Mike, Mary, Becky and the dogs. And myself. The hike was gorgeous, and fairly flat, so it wasn't that hard. Looking back as I type this, It's really mind boggling how hard it was to walk up even a not very steep hill. So we were lucky that it was pretty flat. It was about a 8 mile round trip hike, and we ate lunch during the hike. At the end of our hike, before we turned around there was this lake that was filled with glacier water (see picture). It was a really pretty shade of blue. We also saw a short llama train, and that was petty awesome. We got back to camp mid-afternoon and we hung out until dinner time. Becky made rice with chicken which we ended up eating well before the climbers got back. After dinner we went out to meet them, but didn't find them, so came back. They got to camp a little while after we looked for them. That night we got to sleep very late partly because the climbers had gotten back late and partly because we stayed up pretty late every night. =]
On Tuesday, everyone who had come in after us was going to hike out. They left around 10, I think, after breakfast and some pictures. =] The rest of us hung out for a little while-The flight's close to boarding. Later.
5:09 PM, Thursda
y, August 2, 2007This will be short because the plane has already started its descent.
So, we hung out in camp until after lunch, and then Art, Becky and their dog went down the hill (oh! I haven't written about the hill!) towards Titcomb Basin, and my dad and I went the other direction to read by this pond-thing (see picture) that was in the direction of Wall Lake, where we had headed the first real day there.
So, the hill. We camped by Island Lake, but not right next to it, about a quarter mile away up this pretty steep hill. It wouldn't have been easy to walk up normally, but at high elevation it was so hard to do. By the time I got to camp I was breathing like I'd run a mile.
Okay, well the plane has just... about... okay, it's just hit the runway, so I'm gonna go.
7:29 AM, Saturday, August 4, 2007
Well, I'm home. I'm not sure how ready I am to be home... But I am. =] And I'm still not caught up with my journal. And I still have
a couple days to go. Sighhhh.So, on Tuesday, as me and my dad were walking back to camp, it started to rain. For the first few minutes it was very light sprinkles, but then it started to get harder. And harder. And then it started to hail. So we hid under a boulder, hoping it would let up, but after a few minutes it didn't seem to do so, so we ran over to some trees to see if they would give us better shelter. These trees were only a couple minutes from camp, and they were really not keeping the rain off us at all. So we started to hurry back to camp, where the nice tarp over the kitchen was waiting for us. However, as we walked the rain pretty much stopped. So we got out our cameras and took some wildflower pictures (what we had wanted to do, but then it had rained). There are some gorgeous plants in the Wind Rivers. Well, every thing's gorgeous in the Wind Rivers. =] So eventually we got back and found that Art and Becky had been at camp since it had started raining, and they wondered where we were during the rain. We told them, and talked a little more until dinner time. That night we had this really good pasta dish that Art made. Yummmm.
And that was really the end of our day, I guess. We seem to have done a lot of nothing, really. Of like hanging out and such. It seemed a lot more busy while I was there.... =]
7:49 PM, Sunday, August 5, 2007
Okay, let's see if I can finish this. On Wednesday, the plan was for Mark to meet us at around 10 that morning so he could load all our stuff and the hikers could head out as soon as was possible. He got there, and my dad, Art and Becky left and I stayed because I was going to ride out with Mark. (See picture of me and Tiggy). We left camp about an hour after the hikers and we managed to get about a half hour away from the trail head when, once again, it started to pour. We had to stop riding for a little while at first because the thunder was really loud and the one lightning we could see when we weren't in the trees looked really close. We ended up getting back to the trail head a good half hour or 45 minutes after the hikers. It was lightly sprinkling there, so the ground was muddy as we unloaded the stuff off Mark's horses and mules. Which sort of sucked, but luckily I had a change of clothes and shoes so I could get out of all my wet and muddy stuff. The plan was to drive back into Pinedale and eat dinner before going back to Art and Becky's. As we drove we passed this strange man walking in the rain and bleeding from his nose where his glasses sat. We tried to offer him help but he obviously didn't want it. It was all very strange... Once we got into Pinedale, the first restaurant we tried was filled with cigarette smoke, so we went to the place that we had eaten at when we had first arrived in Pinedale last Wednesday.
I am very proud to say that I was original and had some sort of pasta with cheese, everyone else ordered cheeseburgers. Sigh. =]
After dinner we left, and Art drove most of the way home. Becky did the last hour or so. It was raining most of the time, and then it got dark, and me and my dad had had previous experience with crashing into the antelope that are common along the road, so it's really quite a feat to drive all that way in the dark in the rain. So congrats you guys. =] By the time we got back it was probably 11:30, but we had to unload the car and we all felt very dirty, so we showered before bed. I'm think it was about half past midnight by the time I went to sleep.
The next morning we got up at 8 so me and my dad could put all our stuff sacks in suitcases so we could be ready when Rachel (my cousin) would pick us at 9 so we could go to brunch at 10. We got ready in time, but, after a few other changes, brunch (now really more like lunch) was scheduled for 11:30. We went over to Abuela's house where my uncle Paul, aunt Chris, uncle Pat, cousin Alice and Abuela were. We talked for a little while before going to lunch and meeting up with my aunt Sylvia's boyfriend, Frank. Sadly, Sylvia couldn't make it, but after lunch we went and visited her at her work for a little while.
After a little while, me and my dad asked Rachel to take us to the Utah airport for our 4:30 flight. The flight was really pretty uneventful, except that it was asking for volunteers to go on a later flight, and that, when they first started boarding, they checked some tickets and then suddenly stopped, saying that the plane actually hadn't arrived yet.
Once we arrived in Tucson, we picked up our bags and met my mom. We ate a some Mexican restaurant and then headed home. And that was the end of our trip.
=]
4:51 PM, Saturday, August 18, 2007
Wow. I finally finished. It always takes me so much longer to type these things up than it feels like it should. But it's always interesting re-remembering things we did. =] What a great experience. The mountains, the ones that are so separated from the cities and all, really are amazing things, amazing places to be. I'm really lucky to have had that experience, and, I think, to have been able to appreciate it. Let's hope that there will always be places like this and people to appreciate them.
A few last minute notes: If there are any typos, please let me know. Also, I was thinking about posting my journal of my Grand Canyon rafting trip I took the summer after 8th grade, so, not last summer but the summer before that. So if you're interested, keep an eye out for that.
Elizabeth Horton
