Thorofare: Day Two

Well I am going to try to make up for yesterday's 'opps'. I have a bunch of pictures this time! Give me a second to compose my thoughts though - I worked 10 hours today and I am a little frazzled... Ok, times up - LET'S GO!

July 31, 2006 - Monday - After surviving the night I awoke around 6:00 and decided to peek my head out of the tent to see if any bears had wandered into camp during the early morning light. Fortunatly for me, and the bears, there was no sign of life.

It was around 40 degress so I put on my t-shirt and jeans and shuffled my way to the nearby tree where my pack was hanging. As I was digging through my pack I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye! It wasn't a bear though, it was two hikers headed into the backcountry. They had an early start because it was 6:20 when I checked my watch! It was a little cold so I collected some firewood and started a fire before everyone else got up and had breakfast. We had a nice warm breakfast of oatmeal in our blue aluminum cups. To wash down the oatmeal I poured some hot water into my cup and added some hot cocoa - thus giving me hot cocoa and oatmeal chunks. It was better than it sounds!

After breakfast we packed up and hit the trail around 9:45. We were a little slow at getting packed and on the trail, but we decided to cache our tents so we didn't have to carry so much weight. Laura, her dad, and I found a good tree to hang our tents in and we tied them up about 15 feet above the ground. We took them far enough away from camp so no other hikers would see them, and high enough off the ground so bears wouldn't bother them.

It wasn't long before we came to Trapper Creek where we had to cross the creek on logs. They were not really logs, more like branches that were across the creek. With my hiking staff I easily kept my balance getting across the logs, but those who didn't have a reliable staff - or stick in Laura's case - had to get some assistance. Here's a good picture of Deb getting some help from John and J.R. Check out those dinky little sticks to cross the creek on. Oh well, it's better than wading across.

After a few more hours of hiking we came to Mountain creek where we had lunch and filtered new water for the afternoon. We had to wade across the creek and the water was a little cold for my liking. I think it was mostly the fact that it was only around 60 degrees at the time and the water was definatly colder than that. One of the great things about the cold water is when you filter it you get a nice cold drink - I usually added some Tang or lemonade mix to my water to take the filter taste out of the water.

Most of the afternoon was uneventful for the rest of the hike to the cabin. The views were amazing though - seeing some of the mountains and the area of the park that burned in 1988 was quite neat to see, especially since few people ever venture off the roads in Yellowstone. As we were hiking along we noticed some tracks on the path that looked like that of a dog - but dogs arn't allowed in the back country, and the track was much larger than a dog - more like a Great Dane. I think you know what the paw print was... A wolf!
A little farther down the trail we noticed we were following some different tracks. They were not too hard to identify what animal it was - definatly bear! The lesson was learning what type of bear it was. Black bear or grizzly bear? After getting some information from John we soon realized we were following a grizzly bear towards that cabin. Upon farther investigation we determined the grizzly to be of good size - a front paw measuring nearly 6 inches wide. My Letherman tool measures 8 inches when it's used as a measuring device - we placed it next to the paw print at took a picture. I am glad we didn't run into this bear - viewing it from a distance would have been fine, but up close would have been a little TOO close. You can see the paw print along with the 5 toes and then if you look close enough at the top you can see the claws as well.After the excitment of the bear paw we found ourselves not far from the Yellowstone ranger station cabin which is located just a little over a mile from the Wyoming G&F cabin. We were all quite happy to see the park boundry sign as well - meaning we were within a half mile of the cabin. Here's a picture of the sign as you hike into the park from the Thorofare trail. It says "Entering Yellowstone" and on the back the sign says "Entering Teton National Forest - where the cabin is located. The little sign to the left is a more informational sign to indicate the distance to the Yellowstone ranger station and the 9 Mile trailhead, which is the trailhead which began our trail - even though we didn't actually hike from the trailhead. As you can see the trailhead is 33 miles away and when you are walking the entire way, well lets just say it's a little bit of a hike.

Soon we found ourselves looking down the trail at the cabin and the small patch of trees it is situated in. Once we got there we had to do some looking for the key to get in. We looked for nearly 15 minutes before we were able to find it. I guess you could say it was hidden pretty well, I can't imagine anyone stumbling upon it on accident. Here we are getting ready to go in the backdoor of the cabin and see it for the first time. The firewood stacked up on the left side of the cabin is just one of many stacks which are being prepared for the fall and winter. There are usually a few people from the Wy. G&F who check hunters during the hunting seasons and when temperatures are in the 30's in August you know you will be wanting to have some firewood once October and November roll around.

After we settled into the cabin we readied our beds and prepared for a good nights sleep on actual matress beds - even though they were a little short for the taller folk, they were nice to not have a rock or stick poking me in the back all night... The funniest part of the night was when J.R. woke up in the middle of the night when he heard a sound and thought there was a bear outside the cabin trying to get in. I don't think there was anything outside, which made his drowsy comment all the funnier. Ah, the good times of sleeping in a one room cabin.

The last picture was taken looking towards the North at the cabin and the Trident Mountain. It's kind of hard to see the cabin, but if you enlarge the picture it looks a little better.

I will probably be working a long day again tomorrow so I won't be updating until late evening again. We are getting a lot of progress done with the house and it looks like we might actually finish it by next Friday!

Until again

-=Nolan=-