Into the Wild - Our Gros Ventre Adventure Continued...

I posted this picture in my last entry but I'm posting it again because I want to point out that those mountains in the far distance - the ones you can barely see - are the Tetons. At least I'm pretty sure they are. In real life they didn't seem so far away and small. That's a problem with several of our pictures. The camera didn't do justice to the scale and drama of some of the things we saw. I'm saying this now to prepare you for the anticlimax of our one and only bear picture, which is underwhelming at best.

A detail of our first day's hike that I forgot to mention is that Natalie almost literally stumbled upon a porcupine. This was in the afternoon, on the trail along Flat Creek. We were both looking at our feet, Natalie in front, when it waddled across the trail just a step or two ahead of us. It's funny that although neither of us had ever seen a porcupine (even in a zoo, as far as I can recall), we instantly knew what it was. I say it waddled, but it was alarmed and moving as fast as it could. Its quills were on end, and we were lucky we didn't end up with any of them imbedded in our legs.

At the end of my last entry, Natalie and I had just ascended a ridge on our way to Turquoise Lake and had taken a lot of pictures of the surrounding mountains. As we descended, we found ourselves surrounded by small rivulets of snowmelt threading their way down the ridge with us. In several places, the trail doubled as a channel for one of these tiny streams and we had to choose between walking in water or picking our way over the rough ground next to the trail.

Approaching Turqoise Lake, we crossed a series of three fairly wide streams. While we were stopped at one of them collecting water, a ranger with the U.S. Forest Service came along from the direction we were headed, riding one horse and leading another. She was a young lady, friendly and interested to hear what had brought us to the Gros Ventre and how our trip was going. She was especially interested in our bear sighting. We told her all about it and she seemed to think we had handled it about right. She gave us some tips on trail conditions and bear safety and suggested some routes we might want to try.

After we'd been talking to her for a few minutes, another ranger who was apparently her partner caught up with her. He too was riding a horse and had another in tow. He smiled and greeted us but was not talkative. We would see them again next day, and often saw evidence of them in the form of horse tracks or branches recently cleared from the trail. Knowing they were out there somewhere was reassuring, even if we didn't know exactly where they were at any given time. I regret not getting their names or pictures of them.

The last mile or so to Turquoise Lake was wooded and there were big snowdrifts covering the trail in places. Sometimes we went around, sometimes through. Sometimes it was hard to pick up the trail on the other side. We didn't see Turquoise Lake until we were practically there, so the sight burst upon us all at once. It would be hard to imagine a more picturesque scene. I will just let the pictures speak for themselves.

To be continued...