Wandering through the Wind River Reservation

“How were the Winds?” I asked a NOBO hiker before we entered Yellowstone. There were a couple of alts coming up there–Knapsack Col and the Cirque of the Towers–and I wanted to know if they were worth the extra mileage and elevation.

“Like church,” he said, excitement lighting up his face. “It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever been.”

“Even more beautiful than Colorado?” I could scarcely believe it.

“Even more beautiful than Colorado,” he repeated.

Finding Solemate and Catch-up

After Yellowstone, I checked back in with Solemate and Catch-up, who were coming off of the Teton Crest alt, and realized that they’d be rejoining the CDT only a few days ahead of me. And so, I set out to meet them. I’d started the trail with them back in Glacier, and it would be good to see them again!

It meant pushing some big days (27-30 mile days) back-to-back and not really stopping in towns for more than a quick bite to eat and refilling my food bag. But I was excited about the challenge and even more excited to once again hike with my friends.

Connecting the Teton Wilderness to the Wind River Reservation meant walking through a lot of cow pastures: Slight ups, slight downs, a rising knoll, and sloping back down to a trickling river. Always cows were scattered about on the sides of hills, deep in the trees, or wandering along the creek banks, watching my quiet form pass through, an intrusion they weren’t really sure what to do about. I’d talk to them sometimes: “Hey girlfriend, did you get caught in that rain too? Wild, huh.” Sometimes, they’d moo back.

One night, I took an alt up a steep (though short) incline and got to spend an evening watching a perfect sunset over the coming mountains. In the distance, I heard a bird calling. Mule deer silently stepped past. The sun set in rays of red and pink. In the distance, over a ridgeline miles away, a stormcloud formed and I watched the lightning blaze and illuminate the clouds without hearing a single roar of thunder or feeling rain.

I could only sit there in my tent, watching it all unfold with awe, a witness to the vastness of the landscape I was in and to the incredible world I was getting to experience.

Knapsack Col

A day after the sunset, I scrambled up Gunsight Pass. Despite my climb up, and the jagged mountains rising before me, the trail dropped sharply down to the Green River. The river, shockingly, has a turquoise coloring, so that as I walked along it, my eyes were constantly drawn back to it, wondering how this color is possible or perhaps if I was dreaming.

Green River was popular, with people filling the lakes and campgrounds along the edge. It was a weird juxtaposition: me laying on the riverbank as I chowed down on my melted Snickers bar and granola bars, exhausted and sore after 25 miles of walking (and knowing that I still had 4 miles left), as a fully rested and relaxing couple splashed in the river with their dog, vacationing through my challenge.

I hope they had an amazing time. I hope they sat that night at their campsite and looked up at the stars and whispered, “I’m in awe.” I hope they held each other’s hands next to the campfire, marvelling at the God-carved mountains around them and the God-made person whose hand was intertwined with theirs.

I get sentimental, apparently, during long days.

I had a campfire that night, and geared up for my next challenge: could I make it over Knapsack Col and still meet Solemate and Catch-up in town on time?

Knapsack Col was an alt of the CDT, essentially a side trail that cut off a couple of miles (barely) but took you boulder hopping up to 12,000 feet past incredibly scenic lakes and giving you the wild taste of the Winds. The trail was much more difficult and so, also took more time.

I was camped about 10 miles from the junction, and by the time I got up to Cube Rock Pass, it was already 1 p.m. Granted, I’d been distracted on the hike up: I’d found raspberries and gooseberries along the way and each parting of the trees brought in a fresh, wildly incredible view of the rugged Wind River mountains.

As I scrambled up the boulders to Cube Rock Pass, dark clouds were gathering above me. I kept an eye on them, knowing that there wasn’t really a good place to wait out bad weather on Knapsack. At the pass, I stopped for a quick lunch, and as I did so, the sound of thunder echoed behind me. It was already dubious if I’d be able to push through Knapsack in enough time to also make it into town and the thunder was the last nudge I needed. No Knapsack Col for me today.

Instead, I bailed over Shannon Pass and reconnected with the CDT. The storm clouds stayed behind me and the rumbling thunder soon faded in the distance.

I met Raspberry and Wrong Way coming down from the high route, and we all camped that night next to a beautiful lake. The next morning, we pushed into Pinedale and there I met, once again, Solemate and Catch-up. Mission accomplished.

The Southern High Route

The CDT is a make-your-own-adventure trail, and so we decided to do something completely different. Rather than take the redline (official suggested route) or the Cirque of the Towers (suggested alternate), we opted to take on the southern half of Surka’s Wind River High Route and head into Lander that way.

I wasn’t fully sure what to expect as I didn’t have much time in town to look over the route, but I knew it had incredible mountains,  road-less-traveled adventures, and a good group of people to do it with. How could I say no?

To say that it was the road less traveled would be an understatement. We hiked up to Europe Pass and then the trail disappeared. I had a suggested line on my mapping system and that was it. Each step through the following boulder field was my own, piecing together my own path through the beautiful and wild mountain.

Passing over Photo Pass, we met at the bottom, looking up at the scrambled rocks cascading down each side. After starting up, we found paths others had taken and added our own footsteps to theirs. But once again, after we’d crossed the path, all footprints went away and we once more made our own trail.

That night, I was exhausted. I’d been pushing big days and hadn’t taken time to rest before immediately setting out on this undoubtedly more challenging section. But I was also ecstatic. The nobo had not lied to me. I was standing in the midst of the most beautiful mountains I’d ever seen. Though my legs and feet were sore and felt the effect from all of the climbing and scrambling, I had no regrets.

The next days were similar: we didn’t see any trails until the end of the high route, near Texas Pass. Instead, we picked our way through meadows, past creeks, over rivers, up hills, across more passes. Not every pass had a trail. Sometimes, we’d all meet at the bottom of one, trace the flow of the rocks, and pick out our own path up them. Sometimes I’d look down from where I’d climbed and feel my heart race: I was high up, it was beautiful, it was a long way down, my grip was solid on the rock, there was no path, I was not alone, how could anything be this beautiful?

I felt alive, wildly insane and perfectly sane simultaneously. I felt like an explorer experiencing a new land for the first time. I felt far from home and yet inexplicably close to the world. I was a bird in the wind, a goat passing unexplained across the high mountains.

I was Sparks; my home resting in my backpack and here in these mountains. I was lost yet not; I was exhausted yet vibrant; I was thriving.

Lander

As we descended from the high route, we dropped from 11,000 to 7,000. The cool days and chilly nights I was used to were suddenly replaced by immense heat. Or was it just that I’d spent so much time at altitude that normal heat now felt oppressive?

But I need to get used to it. We’re hiking across the Basin next, known for scarce water sources, flat terrain, and yes, heat.

Lander was the town next, and though we didn’t come off of trail on a CDT trailhead, we were still able to get a hitch in. It also marks another important marker: the end of grizzly bear territory on the CDT. There are spaces (Rocky Mountains National Park, for instance) where there might be another grizzly, but for the most part, we’re out of their territory.

I’m taking a zero to rest my body a little bit, and then it’s into the Basin. The adventure continues ever onward.