Sandstone

Totoro's Adventure

Totoro and I set out from Yellowstone and stopped in the Tetons for a hike up the Middle Teton, the highest peak in the park that can be reached without technical climbing skills. Here, Totoro scrambles up a slope that is considered an off-trail scramble in Wyoming but might be called the Madison Gulf Trail if it were in New Hampshire.

Summit! Totoro at 12,804' with the Grand Teton visible behind.

We drove further south and took off over 40 miles of dirt roads (my little car was not happy) to reach the Wind River Range. I explored granite cirques and cliffs carved by glaciers, and subsisted off pop tarts and box macaroni and cheese for a few days. By the higher alpine lakes, colorful climbers tents were set up, and I could hear shouts of "on belay" echoing down from the walls of the mountains, though any climbers must have been too high up to see.

We set up camp by Big Sandy Lake, next to a group using pack llamas. Yes, pack llamas. I want one to carry my pack!

After bouncing back over the dirt roads, we made it to Utah! Here is Totoro at the Great Salt Lake. You really do float when you swim in it - and little brine shrimp were swimming all around, it was like the world's largest pool of sea monkeys.

Into red rock country, where I'll be spending the fall! Here are the hoodoos and rock formations of cedar breaks national monument.

Cedar Breaks also has bristlecone pines, including this 1,600 year old tree. As totoros love big old trees, I thought it was very fitting for Totoro to sit in this one.

Goodbye Yellowstone

Just a few more fun Yellowstone pictures...


we found a fisheries gillnet buoy washed up onshore. I used it to pole vault a stream.

Otters! If you don't move, they can't see you (their vision is good underwater, they're nearsighted on land) and this group of five was about 10 feet from us.

Ah, Yellowstone Lake on a stormy day (most days, that is).


A hot spring. Cause I suppose these are what the park is actually famous for.

And two more otters, cause otters are awesome.

And now off to Utah for the fall!

Fire!

Fires ripped across the east shore of the lake, keeping us out of a few otter sites. We could see the smoke plumes rising the first few days, and then is was so smoky you couldn't see the lake.


When we finally did get to the Promontory, formerly a lovely site with shady sruce trees and boulders, it looked like this.


Our snares were easy to undo, as the trees they had been attached too were gone



At the promontory fire site, the trees were charred and the ground was still smoking. From time to time a lone, unburnt tree burst into flames. For all that it was charred and lifeless, it was really beautiful in a different sort of way. It's neat that there are some places where they let even things that scare us, like forest fires, exist.

This weekend I was joined in my daily ottering by my cousin Kate. We set out in the boat for a backcountry campsite on Yellowstone Lake, and were fortunate enough not to get eaten by bears, although a mule deer did try to steal our breakfast.

We managed to navigate our boat down to the remote reaches of the southeast arm, and collected some good otter hair and scats. We also decided that it would be a good idea to do fieldwork in sandals, and as a result I nearly lost a toenail and walked around the lake with a bloody foot (good thing there aren’t sharks in Yellowstone Lake!)

At the last site we visited, I heard odd snuffling noises as I collected some smelly otter scats. And we realized….there was an otter inside the den right in front of us. He poked his head out a few times for us. Any day you see otters is just a good day.

Teton Backcountry

Days off…and three days of backpacking on the Teton Crest Trail!

Mary and I headed up Granite Canyon, where we found wild raspberries and delicious thimbleberries too, a kind of raspberry I had never tasted before.

Once we climbed out of the canyon and onto the ridge by our campsite, the trail was mostly flat and we had loads of time to kill. So we hiked off trail (involving some interesting scrambles up scree slopes) to Indian Lake, which very few people ever visit.

The second day we stayed high on the crest trail, overlooking Death Canyon. Yes people have died there. Someone back in the 1800s and also someone last week of a heart attack.

This year was apparently a bad year for wildflowers, but there were still more than I had ever seen. Lupine, monkeyflower, groundsel, and paintbrush grew along streams and in wet fields. We even saw a few patches of columbine (above).

The second night we camped at Sunset Lake (such a creative name). It was so nice out we went without a tent, so partway through the night a mouse decided to run across my face. In the morning, hungry marmots tried to steal our breakfast.

We came over a pass to a view of the Grand Teton and this glacier. Hooray, now I have seen a glacier before they all melt! The meltwater lake at the bottom is such a bizarre green color that it seems like a chemical sludge pond rather than a pristine mountain lake.

More off trail hiking to lakes! Actually, off trail hiking over rockpiles isn’t that much different than on trail hiking on some of the peaks in the Whites. Though these lakes were lovely, with all of our off trail detours we ended up doing over 15 miles with full packs the last day. I was a bit sore the next morning.

And, the highlight of the trip…PIKAS! We saw pikas scrambling around rock piles and making loud whiny calls. Pikas are small alpine rabbitlike animals and they collect grass and make little hay piles to survive the winter. I think I was way more excited to see the pikas than any other animal here (with the possible exception of otters). All the other hikers seemed to think the seven moose we saw that day were more exciting though. Silly of them.

Bighorn Mountains

I hiked up to an alpine lake surrounded by meadows...its such a nice suprise finding anything besides mud, dust, and pointy rocks on the ground in the mountains so I took off my boots and ran barefoot around the meadows.

Everyone else I saw up there was riding horses (lazy!) I think they may have thought I was crazy, as I hiked up and decided to run around when I got there. (Look Jordan, paint horses!)


The trails were rocky and muddy and it was cloudy or raining most of the day. Just like hiking in the Whites, reminded me of all the good times fording rivers and waking up in flooded tents.

Here is the ruin of an old outhouse.


And a moose.


These were the first Wyoming mountains I have hiked in that are grizzly free, which was comforting. In several days though, I am heading into the Teton backcountry, which is definitely not grizzly free (don't worry, I'll have a friend, a bear can, and bear spray).