Wyoming Hiking
July 27-August 2, 2009 - Trip Report
Local guide Meredith Taylor and Peg Abbott with 4 participants

Four intrepid adventurers joined local guide Meredith Taylor and Peg Abbott of Naturalist Journeys for a week-long hiking trip in some of the most spectacular scenery of the American West. Highlights of the trip were many and include:

Flying into Jackson Hole
This is just an extraordinary place to start a journey. As the plane banks in there is the whole expanse of the Tetons and lush green meadows all around, the Snake River winding its way through the valley – WOW! Dave drove direct to Dubois while Peg, Jean and Gloria dodged the rain as we loaded our luggage. We picked up Cathy and had a lovely drive over Togwotee Pass, looking off to fresh snow on the palisade of mountains that line the area above Brooks Lake where we would hike later in the week. This was our first glimpse of flowers – the next highlight!

       

FLOWERS – an amazing array of color at every turn!
We timed our visit to the Wind River, Absaroka and Teton Mountains just right. At every turn there were expanses filled with flowers. Our first day revealed a carpet at the high elevations, the color scheme being red, white and blue. We found flowers amid all the moist places such as aspen groves and stream courses. There were gentians and lupines and paintbrush galore. We took endless photos of each other, posed in flowers like models. We got out field guides to find American Bistort and various members of the saxifrage family. Meredith knew most of them by heart and she knew which ones we could eat!  We sampled some here and there on the trail but a great surprise was a beautifully crafted wildflower salad that Meredith brought to our invitation-only dinner by the creek.

Dinner on the Creek
Who will forget the fun time we had at the home of Carolyn Neary who runs the Jakey’s Fork Bed and Breakfast. A long time friend of Peg and Meredith’s, she shared such warm hospitality and hosted the music of the Celtic Cowgirls, a local Dubois band of which Meredith (a gal of many talents!) is a member. We had great western music, wonderful food that included local game meat cooked by Tory Taylor on the grill, and camaraderie. We stayed until after dark, enjoying a roaring campfire and Meredith’s homemade chocolate cake.

The Painted Badland Hills of Dubois
Our first introduction to the open landscape of Dubois was as we descended Togwotee Pass, passing from rain to sun with a rainbow to greet us. Deep rust reds, soft salmon and a faint hue of purple colored the hills surrounding town. Dubois is a gem of a small town in the Rockies and was Peg’s home at least seasonally for most of 17 years. How happy she was to return and to share the place with special clients and friends. We found the painted hills once again framing the our trailhead in Torrey Valley for our hike to Lake Louise.

Meredith Taylor
Meredith’s smile was as bright as the painted hills as she greeted us that first day. She wore a western vest and beaded Shoshone jewelry, and brought maps to orient us to our hikes in the week ahead. In the coming week we would get to know Meredith well and her spirit and sharing of a fascinating life were perhaps the single strongest highlight of the trip. We will remember her infectious laugh, quiet competence (great when stepping over fresh Grizzly Bear scat on the trail….) and passion for place. She and her husband Tory are currently immersed in a quest to better understand the local Sheepeater / Wind River Shoshone people that have inhabited the area at for centuries. Many of our hikes led to archaeological and historic sites and we were able to see much of what they have learned in displays they produced for the Dubois Museum.

Archaeology
We learned a lot on this journey, particularly about the Sheepeater culture and how it lived with local wildlife, often migrating with them to capture seasonal abundance of resources. We hiked to sheep traps, a past-village site, a high mountain village site, and to areas known for fine hunting. We heard about even more remote sites we could not get to, but saw evidence of them in the soapstone bowls at the museum. Meredith shared several replicas of tools carved by Tory after finding the originals. We walked through a maze of boulders, situated on a lakeshore, that were covered with lichens and with Petroglpyhs.

  

Miles on the trail…
We walked each day, even on one misty rainy day on which we changed our route so as not to get mired on a slippery clay road. Our fist hike was to Lake Louise, a beautiful dazzling blue jewel set between immense cliffs of stone. En route we passed a rushing waterfall and a Red-naped Sapsucker feeding young fledglings in an aspen grove. Several of the gang hiked UP to a ledge of meadows locally known as ‘the Golf Course’, quite a place at nearly 10,000 ft.  Peg and Jean spent a day walking a gentle road atop Union Pass where we had splendid vistas, watched a cattle drive in progress and had a Sandhill Crane cross very close calling loudly. Our grand finale was to Bonneville Pass. Near the trailhead Dave spotted a Fisher, a very rare mammal – what luck!  We loved the parade of flowers we passed en route, particularly the bright pink clusters of monkey flowers along the stream.

Trumpeter Swans & Osprey 
Peg, now working on contract with The Trumpeter Swan Society (www.trumpeterswansociety.org) was THRILLED to spot two big white birds in Lake Julia, the first of the chain of lakes leading up Torrey Valley, home of what was once the Audubon Camp in the West. Talking to the local landowner, it seems the female has been coming about four years and two summers ago was joined by the male. Perhaps in time they will breed in these quiet wetlands. Definitely breeding was the pair of Ospreys atop a platform Peg had put up some 20 years ago near the shore of Torrey Lake. We had splendid views of both species in passing.

Wildlife!
Seeing a lone Bighorn Sheep coming down to a natural salt lick was a treat on our first day as we returned from Lake Louise. The wildlife mother lode however was in Grand Teton National Park where the group ventured out on a wildlife safari with a local guide from Wildlife Expeditions. They found a herd of Bison starting to be interested in the rut and watched them dust bathe and feed in the sage. An active Beaver was fun to watch as well. We found Mule Deer, Elk and Moose – glorious mammals of the West.

TETONS
This has to be almost everyone’s idea of the quintessential mountain range.We loved watching light, changeable by the hour, dance over their jagged peaks. Early in the morning we marveled at sky divers soaring off the ridge outside our hotel. We wound around a dirt road back route into the park each day, and then stopped at scenic viewpoints for photos of these grand mountains. On a hike we all picked our own pace, venturing through a recent burn and past two beautifully positioned lakes which held perfect reflections of the mountains. Peg spied a Northern Goshawk at close range, and a Golden Eagle high in the clouds. We stopped at the Chapel of the Transfiguration, a classic log cabin church and checked out the park’s Visitor Center. And we took time to walk the streets of Jackson where we posed for a group shot by the famous arch of antlers that marks town square.

As always in travel, our time now gives significance to a new corner of the map for us all. It was tough to say our good-byes after a super week enjoyed by all.  Until the next adventure! 

 

Photos by: Peg Abbott, Cathy Cooper, Jean Matter and Dave Mennenga

 

 

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