First off, we have been hitting almost every town on a weekend for the last 400 miles and small town libraries, though very nice, often have limited hours on the weekends and libraries are often the only place in town to blog from, so sorry about the lack of blogging recently.
We are now in Pinedale, WY. We are about 50 trail miles short of our goal of Togwotee Pass, which would close the gap we haven't yet hiked in Wyoming. The forecast when we left Lander, WY on saturday was for sun until today (Thursday) and then rain and cold temperatures. We had hoped to be at Togwotee tomorrow (Friday), so we were planning on about two days of cold and wet. Sunday and Monday we had great weather and got to hike an alternate route through Cirque of the Towers, which was one of the most beautiful places we have seen this summer/fall. Tuesday late morning we were going over a relatively low pass (10,800) and we were sleeted on for about 25 minutes with very strong winds. After the sleet stopped the sky gave us a brief break to think about our future, but it definitely didn't look like it would get sunny. We decided to hike a longer, but lower route through the western foothills area of the Wind River Range, in hopes that staying below 10,000 ft would allow us to avoid any more sleet/snow and hopefully have slightly warmer temperatures. On Wednesday we were rained on most of the morning and again had some sleet, which actually stuck to the ground in some places. Since the last forecast we had seen was for bad weather on Thursday, we decided it was probably best to bail out of the mountains before then. For anyone who has ever been in the northern rockies in the fall, you probably know how fast the weather can change from mild to wintry. We ended up missing a trail junction on the way to a trailhead and we ended up at a the Lozier's Bar R Ranch, where a ranchhand was nice enough to drive us into Pinedale to a warm hotel. It rained all night and has been raining off and on this morning, with temperatures in the low 40's in town, so we are glad to be out of the mountains. It is very sad that we were so close to finishing the trail in Wyoming but we know that we would have had a miserable and potentially dangerous time hiking for the next three days if we had continued to Togwotee Pass and this part of the country is just WAY too beautiful to hike through in clouds and pouring rain. Wind River Range, I know I will be back to visit you again (hopefully in August) and I am sure Liv and Joel are both planning return visits as well.
The last few weeks have been very fun for us. We finished up Colorado with a few days of intense (though not too cold) rain in the Rabbit Ears Range and then some light rain and cold temperatures in the Park Range before crossing the border into Wyoming. Once across the border we had wonderful fall weather. I didn't set up my tent for over a week and the moon was barely out, which made for some great Wyoming star gazing. We took a day off in Rawlins, which is an okay town, though spread out, and then we had a really awesome time crossing the divide basin between Rawlins and Atlantic City. We ended up doing a 40 mile day in the desert with a 29 mile waterless section, which has always been a thru-hiking goal of mine. It was a beautiful day (though windy) and we ended uprunning into some people car camping at the end of the evening who gave us celebratory beer; some treat!
When we reached Atlantic City, an historic mining town, we got to stay in the Teepee outside the Miner's Grubstake restaurant. Laurel and Dale, the owners, were fantastic people and the food was great. The aspen were all turning and it was a great way to end four days off walking across the desert and chasing pronghorn and wild horses (and cows).
We are now hanging out in Pinedale waiting for my friend Scott to come pick us up tomorrow after work and take us towards New Mexico so we can finish this journey up in hopefully warmer and drier weather. It is supposed to snow two inches here in town tonight, but last nights forecasted snow ended up being just cold rain.
