Big Sandy Lodge to West Yellowstone

What a Fantastic Hike!

Kevin and I drove Jay to Eugene, Oregon so he could start his trail-building program with Northwest Youth Corps.  On the way, we traveled through some very nice areas, including a rather unscenic Scenic By-Way (Blue Mountains or something like that -- or perhaps "we extract resources from this place" highway) where Jay panned for gold and rode a train.  We also visited the northern Oregon coast, numerous Lewis and Clark historical sites (Washington state mostly), and our good friends, the Wilsons (who pioneered the use of our now trademarked name, "Crazy Mattsons"). Here's Jay on a train ride through dredge tailings (no joke):

Here is Jay wakeboarding on the Columbia River.  He developed new arm muscles.

Here we are with the Wilsons, playing ping pong on the Columbia River.

Notice in the above the photo the subtly changing range of heights in our family.  Below is a picture of Buck Mulligan taking a quick and brisk dip in the Pacific Ocean, close by to where we camped.

Whoever said that acrobatics wouldn't come in handy when we traveled to the coast should check out this photo:

After dropping off Jay in Eugene, Kevin and I drove back to the CDT. The Big Sandy Lodge let us park our car at their guest ranch.  The pre-trip night was fantastic.  We had dinner family style with the other guests, then discovered that one of our table mates was "Captain Blye" from the book "Zero Days".  While Jay and I were getting ready to hike the PCT we read this book aloud to one another.  Even Kevin read it.  When I found out who I was having dinner with I acted like a total groupie.  And now some photos of our trip going through the Winds to the Green River:

We hiked the Fremont and Highline trail through the winds.  It was fantastic.  We met Pat, a science teacher from Durango.  I hope to stay in touch with him as he has great ideas for science and math projects for Jay.

We met lots of cool people in the Winds.  On our way out to Pinedale for resupply we met Kevin and his son Tate.  They drove us in to Pinedale.  I was expecting many items, but the thing I was looking for most was my 3 oz gossamer gear hiking stick.  I eagerly ripped open the damaged cylinder only to find a stick in two pieces.   Gage, from Gossamer Gear  was fantastic and sent a new one to Brooks Lake  Lodge.  Three tries was the charm.

Where the Winds get especially beautiful:

From the Winds, the CDT goes down canyon to the headwaters of the Green River (a river we floated numerous years ago through Canyonlands):

Not a great idea, but we decided to camp next to a mama Moose and her calf.  Vicky said, "Hey, we have the same initials: MM."  The mama and the calf watched us closely then walked off into the woods.

Nearby to here, we also saw Annie and Breeze again and met Green Flash for the first time

Bald Eagle at Green River Lakes above

Vicky loved this sign.  Bells! Bear Spray!

This section is 70 miles of ROADLESS coolio.  Teton Wilderness then Yellowstone NP.

The orange butterfly and purple flowers were reoccurring visuals on the trail

These Monkshood flowers were illusive and very beautiful

Duck Family

or dinner?

The 1988 fire in Yellowstone and the Teton Wilderness leads to an abundance of Fireweed and many other wildflowers

Locked up ranger cabin above. Sequestration?

Crossing?  At this site, Utah swam across and rolled down a waterfall, practically going into shock.  The only option was to "toss" her across the creek.  That worked.  Though it didn't fix Utah's sense of humiliation.

Chipmunk, the only living thing we saw in the Big Burn

Beautiful Monkshood and Yarrow.  The park is doing a great job looking at the sunny side of the burn by touting the abundance of wild flowers.  Well, my grizzly paranoia seemed silly when I was walking through meadow after meadow of bee covered wildflowers. Where did I put that darn epipen? 

Breccia Cliffs, Teton Wilderness

Mt. Sheridan.   This mountain is yellow, red, grey, black; it all depends on the time of day.

Our first Yellowstone hot feature, a hot pot.

This was an extremely bad day for Utah and us.  She ingested something in the morning that had her losing control of her back legs.  She had pinpoint pupils, and lost control of her tongue.  At noon, we figured she had had a stroke and were saying goodbye and trying to figure out what to do once she passed.  I squirted water into her mouth; we cried and waited. She started to get better.  After a while she got her legs back, and we started hiking again by evening.  

All better now. Grant Village and Zero got Utah squared and gave me time to doodle.  Utah got a special serving of Dinty Moore Beef Stew.

Our first reservation was only 6 miles down the trail so it was almost another zero.

Lewis Lake

The trail through the park has many hot features.

Our favorite was camp OA2 had hot pots right in camp

Lone Star geyser is a little off the trail, goes off huge every three hours, we only saw the minor stuff.

Our last campsite in the park was Summit Lake.  We shared it with several duck families.

We packed up with our usual daily amount of water, left camp ready for our last few days on the trail.  Then a few hundred yards down the trail we found a note saying it would be 25 miles to the next water.  We loaded up.  

Idaho.

Wow,  a four state summer!  Those last two were separated by about 20 miles.  We still have more of Idaho and Montana to walk next summer. We will pick Jay up in a few days then head back to Athens.

I hope you have enjoyed our summer photos and stories.