Day Trips

 

Our first day trip from basecamp was a drive up to see the Grand Tetons, a place I hadn't seen before outside of pictures too. My plan had been to drive up to the northern entrance and make our way south along the inside of the scenic look drive there up closer to the mountains. Instead, we ended up on the outside of the scenic look driving south. Although later we would drive north up the inside loop and retrace our drive a second time heading south on the outside of the loop, I preferred the outside part of the loop better. Being some distance away from the mountains just gave them better perspective and beauty than being up close and personal. Plus everyone and their brother were on the inside loop, so much so, that the Jenny Lake parking lot was completely full and people were parked a half mile along the main road in both directions. It was scorching hot that day so we didn't even stop there. We did stop at a little chapel near the southern entrance of the inside part of the look where I took the above picture.

Above is a phot taken with my phone zoomed in from the outer loop somewhere. The park was about what I expected it to be, a zoo at this time of the year. There were animal induced traffic jams, the biggest one caused by a bull moose standing only 15 feet or so from the edge of the road. Unbelievably to me, there were people between my car and it taking pictures as we slowly drove by. People are incredibly naive as I've read they are more dangerous than bear and hurt/kill more people annually than bear in Alaska. 

On our way to the Tetons, we drove along the east side of the Wind River mountain range and on the way home from the Tetons, we drove along the west side of the Wind River range making a complete circuit of the range and going through territory I had never been in before. As we turned from the west side of the Wind Rivers to start heading east along the southern edge of the range, the road became straight as an arrow for more miles than I could count but I'm guessing somewhere close to 50 miles. I'm not sure I've ever drive that far before without turning the steering wheel. I found the arid plains to be incredibly beautiful and took this shot through my bug smeared windshield, hence the blurry artifacts in the photo. 

The following day and following a day mostly spent in a minivan, we decided to spend a day outside stretching our legs. As it was forecasted to be scorching hot, we got an early jump on the day and drove to nearby Lander and the Popo Agie river canyon. There we found a place to pull off the road and hike along a trail that headed upstream and up the mountain.

It was pretty rough terrain and pretty exposed to the sun since there weren't a lot of trees along the side we were hiking. We did stop in the shade of the few we came too to rehydrate requently.

Taken from the same point as the previous picture but this time looking upstream towards where we were heading.

Eventually we reached our destination which were the Popo Agie Falls which fall around 100 feet in a series of cascades, some of which are visible in the picture above. 

Since we were fairly early in the day, there weren't a lot of people around yet and so we looked around awhile until we found the deserted nook above among the many falls and decided to have our lunch there and take a break. It had a nice sand beach and was partially in the shade. That lasted maybe five minutes before the first people arrived and despite there being dozens if not a hundred other spots in the vicinity, waded right out into the middle of the pool and stood looking at us like we were zombies or something. Eventually they moved on only after another family with kids moved into the pool as well. I don't have the rights to the area but was brought up that it is bad form to invade other's resting spots when out hiking in nature. The kids were quiet but the tranquility of the spot was lost. 

After only about 15 minutes of sharing the spot with the other family, we decided to go elsewhere and started to get loaded up to get back on the trail. As I stood up, my hiking boot scraped a divot in the sand and uncovered a diaper buried there. Yuck. Just then another couple with two large dogs came barging into the spot and promptly unleashed their dogs who frolicked in the water splashing it everywhere and pissing within feet of where I was standing. I'm not sure what they thought... if anything at all. 

We began the journey down the now hot exposed trail back to where we had parked our car but now that we were hiking down the mountain, it was much easier going. We stopped along the way to take a few pictures and stay hydrated but had no further incidents. We did pass many others still heading up the mountain towards the falls, none of them carrying any water and all sweating very profusely. No doubt the few spots with horse excrement on the trail that was designated as a no horses allowed trail, were due to human rescue efforts in the past. 

Back in our vehicle during the now hottest part of the day, we drove on up the canyon to a mountain pass high above where the air was 15 degrees cooler and enjoyed the view. Then we retraced our way back down the canyon to a spot near the entrance where the Popo Agie river disappears underground called "The Sinks". Part of it re-emerges on one side of the canyon that in high water, is the normal river channel and the rest emerges on the other side of the canyon. This second emergence isn't in the normal river channel so it sort of dead ends and creates a spot where trout heading upstream become trapped and can't go up any further. 

Back in my childhood when I first stopped here, I have the distinct memory of standing on a deck overlooking where the water emerges out of the ground and feeding the huge trout handfuls of dogfood. These days, you can still feed the fish but it is specially formulated food that is supposed to be healthier for the trout. As a result of this feeding, the trapped trout will hang around instead of turning back and finding the main channel of the river to proceed up. It is definitely a unique spot. As one might expect, no fishing is allowed on this side of the canyon.

After feeding the trout, we headed back to our rental to spend the remainder of the day relaxing in the air conditioning.