Pictured Rocks

The summer got away from me with way too much going on. Never got out to the Bighorns, sadly. Maybe next summer. However, it looks like I'll be able to spend a short time at Picture Rocks National Lakeshore in a couple of weeks, hopefully for peak fall color but not yet very cold weather. 

I'm going with a hiking buddy, my daughter's boyfriend, who hasn't ever really been hiking before, but who has wanted to for a long time. I don't know yet exactly what we're going to do, but I've been noodling with a few ideas. I think of it as his trip that I'm kinda long for the ride on, but the reality is that because its his first time, I suspect he's going to hope and expect me to kind of take the lead on a lot of things. Anyway, we'll work it out. I don't want to tell him where to go if he's already done his own research, but if he hasn't, I've got some ideas.

It seems like a pretty last minute thing; we're going in about a week, and we don't have backcountry campsite reservations yet or a route. But if we do my proposal, we'll start out at the Miners Falls parking lot, go see the Miners Falls, come back to the car and roadwalk (or drive, I suppose. No reason why not) to Miner's Beach and Miner's Castle parking lot, and use that as our trailhead. It's only about 6-7 or so miles to Mosquito River campsite. While I dislike the name of that place, I suspect that by a little bit later in October (not to mention the higher latitude) there hopefully won't actually be any mosquitos. 

From there, we can actually leave our tents up two days, and do two day-hiking routes; the Chapel Lake area and the Beaver Basin area. We'll drive up and stay the night on Wednesday, do the initial hike in on Thursday, hike all around on Friday, hike out on Saturday and get back very late Saturday night. Not the most impressive trip, but a good quickie. I long weekend (sorta) away, and an introduction to a first-time hiker. Friday might be relatively big miles (by relatively I mean maybe more than 10) but given that we can do that with just little day packs for some food, water and a handful of essentials, it shouldn't be a big deal.

Some route noodling

I know that I have a terrible tendency to overdo my routes. There are too many things that I want to see, and I end up planning big routes where I'm forced to walk ten miles or more a day in the mountains, climbing thousands of feet, and I end up not doing it, because I get tired, altitude sickness, and just not in the mood, or a combination of all of the above. That said, this "route" includes more options than I'm liable to be able to use, by a long shot.

It's really two routes; either the Lost Twin Lakes destination via Mirror Lake, or the Florence Lake/Bomber Mountain destination via Helen, Marion, Mistymoon and Gunboat lakes. I do kind of like the second of those, but it's obviously about 50% or so longer than the other option.

Anyway, here's the link to the Caltopo I drew for it.

https://caltopo.com/m/3KG0

And here's an image or two to keep us inspired.

Cloud Peak Wilderness

Although it's crazy to me that I might be hiking in August and it's July 2nd, and I still have no idea what I'm going to do, I... well, I'll probably be hiking in August for a week and I still have no idea what I'm going to do. What I'm leaning towards strongly now is the Cloud Peak Wilderness in the Bighorn Mountains of Central Wyoming for about three or four days followed by a couple of days of scenic roadtripping around the Bighorn Basin. (I had thought about going back to the Uintas, but I really want to branch out; I've spent way too much time in that range while other locations should have been commanding my attention for more diversity of experience.)

The Bighorns are kind of like the Wind Rivers little brother; on the other side of the basin, no grizzly bears, similar scenery, but just a tad more subdued. It also comes with the benefit that it hasn't become a hiker/climber magnet, so it's a place of likely solitude other than some hikers and fly fishersmen who are most likely locals. 

Another contender was the Lost Creek Wilderness in southern Colorado, which has a very unique look to it. That's a short-lister for a late September or early October hike, if the weather cooperates. Maybe even this year! (Sigh. I have two weeks of vacation that are unaccounted for and I don't want to waste it frittering away my time on the computer, or watching TV or something stupid at home. Especially if the rest of the family are going to be here all over the house anyway.)

Whether I take any of my sons with me remains to be seen, but it's looking somewhat unlikely, at least for this first trip. My oldest son will have a new baby, will be moving, and working. My next oldest will still be in NoCal on his mission. My youngest wants to come, but his availability due to his job is iffy. Plus, he doesn't really want to backpack so much as he wants to do the scenic roadtripping portion of the trip. Which is fine, because the two portions might end up being close to a 50/50 split. But his availability is still iffy.

Anyway, I have the Trails Illustrated map on order, but it will come in while I'm out of town, so I won't be able to look at it until about the 20th of July. Less than a month before I actually go hiking, I presume. Yikes. I tend to like to be more prepared than that, but then again, why? Why not show up with only a vague idea of where I'm going and do what I'm feeling like? What I really need to spend more time on is figuring out what to see while driving around in the basin. For the backpacking, I'll probably just head up to one of the "popular" destinations, like the Pouch Lake area or something, and play it somewhat by ear.

Anyway, while I won't be posting while out of town, I'll probably have some posts to make as I wrap up my preparations for the trip, and of course, after I come back. More activity on this blog is coming soon...

Uinta High Route

Lodging this link away for future reference...

https://danransom.com/2019/06/backpacking-uinta-high-route/

Checking in...

2020 was weird for everyone, no doubt, but I did no backpacking or major hiking trip the entire year. The Isle Royale trip, already documented here was the most recent that I've done. I'm not yet sure what 2021 holds either; we have lots of uncertainty about our schedule in particular and things we need to do. Although no doubt, I'll visit a number of beautiful outdoorsey locations, whether I get to hike in them or not is TBD.

To be fair, in 2020 I did that as well. I got to check a number of places off of my list that I'd never been before, some of them having been at the top of my list for the better part of 40 years. I saw Yellowstone. I saw the Grand Tetons. I saw Pilot and Index Peaks. I saw Mt. Rushmore and Custer State park, and much of the rest of the Black Hills. I saw Badlands National Park. I saw Promontory Utah and the Golden Spike area. I saw the Devil's Tower (I did actually do the inner loop hike there; it's small enough that other than the somewhat bigger outer loop, which no doubt doesn't look too much different, I don't have a ton of other options anyway.)

But in no case did I have the opportunity to do more than a few day hikes or drive up and look kind of things. The longest hike that I managed to talk my family into doing with me when I had them with me was a little beyond Inspiration Point at the Tetons. Everyone actually said that they liked the Tetons better than Yellowstone, which I think nobody expected (except for me, maybe.)

Anyway; it's been over a year since I've made a post, so I thought I'd just do a check in. I don't have any specific plans to announce, unfortunately. I'll be going out West at least twice yet this year, but I don't anticipate being able to do more than a few days of outdoorsy sightseeing while out there. We're actually trying to get all the way to the West Coast and maybe see the Redwoods, but when we do, it will likely be in the winter. In the summer, we'll head to Boise and maybe see some stuff either on the way or on the way back.

And it'll be "drive up to a place and maybe spend a few hours there" too, not backpacking for several days, sadly. But that's what I know for sure I can do. If I can fit another trip for me in, I will. I just don't know that I can yet.