My Trails

The mountain road that I’m camped on continues up to the Bridger Wilderness. I drove up the other day and was surprised to find about 50 cars parked at the trailhead. Some girls loading up backpacks told me it is a very popular trail system. These rugged mountains are home to grizzly bears so everyone is required to take bear canisters. The main trail through the mountains is part of the Continental Divide Scenic Trail, the third north/south long distance trail in the US. I would love to hike some on that trail.

Yesterday I visited the Mountain Man Museum here in Pinedale. It was quite interesting. There were many displays of rifles, traps, knives, and other trinkets used by the mountain men, but mostly it was stories of the beaver fur trade and the men who lived in the mountains trapping and surviving the harsh environment. They say that scores of men vanished to a mysterious death from the danger of the wilds. Hostile Blackfoot Indians that hated mountain men, bad tempered 600 pound bears, and brutal winters, all claimed untold trappers.

I’m doing laundry today and then will push on down that long, lonesome highway. I’m hoping it will get a little more lonesome now that kids are going back to school.

This is just a quick post to report my position. The cell signal here is poor so I may not stay very long.

It was an uneventful drive of about 200 miles into Wyoming. I found a campsite in the Bridger – Teton National Forest a few miles north of Pinedale, WY. Pinedale is about 50 miles Southeast of Jackson.

I will stay here at least through the weekend and then move further north.

The weather was better this morning so I decided to ride to Flaming Gorge Dam. I also needed drinking water and thought I could find a campground with a spigot. The highway to the dam was above 8000 feet for most of the way, so it was a chilly ride until the road dropped 2000 feet to the visitors center.

The tour of the dam was fun. The guide new all her numbers and statistics for the tourists and recited them at each stop along the way. After passing through the generator room one guy asked her how long it took for the electricity to get from the generators to a nearby town. She looked puzzled for a few moments and then said, “I’m not quite sure but it would probably take 20 minutes or so.”

On the way back I pulled into a pay campground and filled up a couple of gallon jugs with drinking water. Usually if you pay to stay at a campground, the dump is included with the fee. This dump station had a sign that said there was a $6 fee on top of the camping fee.

A while later I came to a sign announcing a historic cabin down a dirt road so I pulled off to check it out. I went maybe 5 miles and still hadn’t found the cabin. The sky was beginning to look angry so I turned around and gave up any more sightseeing. I only wish they would tell you how far some of these places are from the main road.

I just made it back before the rain came down in buckets. I probably was going a little too fast up the forest road to get here, but there is nothing worse than getting soaked minutes from home.

The weekend has brought many people out to the forest even though the weather has not been great. The camp on my left has a dog that barks constantly. I thought the animal was in distress after listening to him bark and howl for three hours, so I walked through the woods to see if he was hurt or something. Apparently, the owners had just tied him to a tree and left.

Rambo and his friends are camped to my right. It sounded like machine-gun fire for a while this afternoon. Even as it rained the gunfire went on and on. Usually there is a rule about shooting in a camping area but I don’t think many rules are enforced up here.