Tuesday, August 29, 2006

The End Is Coming!

Well, at least the end of August is coming. Can you believe it!? September is soon to be upon us! I am still working away with the landscaping job and we are wrapping up another big job. I loaded up some road mix and gravel into my pickup this evening and dumped it on the side driveway here at the house. I used the Bobcat to load the pickup, let me tell you, it's a lot easier than shoveling that stuff by hand, which I had to do once I got it home. That took up most of my afternoon and evening, but it was a good way to spend some time outside and make a few improvements.

Over the weekend Laura and I did some geocaching and we easily hit 750! As of tonight we are at 754. Last night we actually went for a 7 mile run to find a cache. It was nice to get out and do some running, but nothing like it used to be in college when I could clip off some 6 minute miles for 10-12 miles. No no, this was more like 8-9 minute mile pace, but it felt like I was running faster than that. Well, I will leave it at that, I will just say I am not in as good of shape as I would like to be, however I have lost about 20 pounds since April and I actually saw the scale stop at 179 pounds on Sunday night!

Sunday, we hiked up onto of Mount Jumbo - the mountain with the L on it if you have been to Missoula before. It was a nice hike to the top, and we were able to get above most of the smoke from the forest fires so the breathing wasn't too bad. Later on Sunday I purchased a new Remington 870 Express Super Magnum shotgun. Remington is offering at $30 rebate on Express shotguns through the end of the year so now was my time to buy. Now Laura and I will be able to shoot at the same time instead of sharing the gun! We also applied for swan tags - in Montana we have a Sandhill Crane and Swan season along with waterfowl. We sent our names in on Saturday for the drawing in a few weeks and we will see if we are lucky enough to get a tag. There are only 500 tags drawn for the Pacific Flyway so we are keeping our fingers crossed. It would be a great hunt if we were able to actually get a tag and then find a swan! ha ha! Swan hunting is foreign territory to me, so it could be a really interesting experience.

I will leave it at that for now. My brain is trying to process about 28 different things right now and I am having trouble keeping my train of thought for my blog posting so if this has been a jumbled mess of gibberish you now have an explaination as to why that is the case... Here's a picture as a consolation prize - it's the windsock on top of the mountain we climbed.My next blog is doing to be dedicated to some friends who have been with me a few years now that have taken quite a few places. It will be a special blog dedicated to them and their companionship. Until again

-=Nolan=-

Friday, August 25, 2006

Waiting On The Rain

I awoke this morning to the sound of water dripping from the downspout outside. I figured work would be a little muddy to get started, but at 6:30 my phone rang and the boss had decided we were gonna wait awhile and see if the rain would let up - which I am still waiting for. It looks like it is going to clear up soon and maybe we will get some work done today, but it's gonna be muddy regardless! I think we are all ready to be done with this job and the little problems and occasional rain has made the job last a little longer than we wanted.

I snapped a picture as I went to work yesterday - we started an hour late, at 8:00, so it was actually light when I went to work. I just held the camera up to the windshield and this is what I got. A view of the valley with, well, less haze than the day before and a few bug spots on my windshield. You can compare this photo to the first photo I posted on Wednesday and see the difference. Some days it's crystal clear and you can see a great ways down the valley.

I don't have much to share this morning. Laura and I are looking forward to our third weekend with no plans! Laura just has to stop by the school on Saturday morning and then we are free to do as we wish for the weekend. I think we are going to do some geocaching - we are going to try to get to 750 by the end of the month and we have 5 to go! Until again

-=Nolan=-

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

No Work On Wednesday

After having some short work days on Monday and Tuesday we had Wednesday open to do what we wanted, which in my case resulted in sleeping in an extra hour and listening to the talk radio out of Kearney. We will be back to work tomorrow and back into the regular routine but it was nice to have a day during the week to do as I wished.

Laura went to school for awhile and I picked her up around 1:00. We went and did a new geocache and then did a little shopping before heading home. The smoke around Missoula has gotten a little overwhelming and a good rain and wind would be a relief. I took some pictures on my way to pick up Laura. Usually you can see the mountains for 3 miles when you look west from Missoula, but as you can see the smoke creates a wonderful smog look! The only mountains you can see are on the left side.

The next picture is looking over Missoula from the south and there is a mountain range just 10 miles away from where I took the picture. I would like to have a few days of breathing some clean air, that's for sure. I don't really care to play Ultimate or go running when it feels like I am just in a smoke filled bar 24 hours a day. In fact it makes me a little sick, I am ready for some prairie winds to come sweeping through and bring some clean air.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Monday, August 21, 2006

Floating & Fixing

After yesterday's update Laura and I loaded up the camo boat and headed out for the river to take a float on the Bitterroot and Clark Fork River. It was about a 6 mile float and it took us two hours almost to the minute. The river was rather slow flowing but we still had a few spots where the river took a quick drop through some 'rapids' and once the front of the boat dipped below the water as we manuvered through the rocks and down the river. The boat seems to be quite river ready and it would be easy to take down the river by myself if I had the desire.

The real excitment came about an hour into our float - around 1:30. It seems around 1:00 a lightning strike started a fire on the mountain to the west of us - it was 90 degrees and sunny, not a cloud in the sky. Well as we are floating down the river a helicopter comes flying over and lands about a mile downstream of us. Then the helicopter took to the air and started filling a bucket to drop on the fire. About five minutes later the helicopter was back to fill the bucket, this time he flew over us about 300 feet high and disappeared for another five minutes. We floated along in silence for another five minutes and the helicopter returned just around the bend and downstream of us. Now there were 3 firefighters visable along the shore line - evidently they have been dropped off by the helicopter and attached the bucket to the chopper and then stood by on look out for the rest of the flight. We gave a wave to them as we went through one of the best rapids (if you can call them that) of the day and we disappeared around the bend. Suddenly the helicopter came buzzing over the trees and did a hard turn RIGHT over us - the bucket swung over our heads about 50 feet and then the pilot dropped the bucket in the river RIGHT in front of us - well ok, it might have been 100-150 feet downriver. It only took about 3 seconds to fill up and he was lifting up and gone before we were able to get much closer. I wish I would have had my camera handy because it would have made an EXCELLENT picture! It was up close and we had a front row seat to see the action. The next half hour of the float was pretty slow going and we decided to just let the boat go where the river took it and we put the paddles down and enjoyed the rest of the float. It was a great short float for a warm day and hopefully we will be able to take the boat hunting this season.

My boss is gone until Thursday so work is pretty slow right now. We met up this morning to do some rock work at the house we are finishing up and then called it a day at 11:30. I stopped by Wal-Mart on my way home and picked up some supplies to keep me busy for the afternoon while Laura was at work. My first find was a lamp kit to rewire some antique lamps that Laura's grandma gave to us. They are George & Martha Washington Lamps - I know nothing about them other than they were made before the 1940's. Anyway, I picked up a lamp kit and then shortly after that I found a lamp shade on clearance which I thought would go nicely with the lamp - at least for the price, so in the cart it went. As I was making my way around the store I spotted some bike hooks for 47 cents so I dug deep into my pockets to see if I could afford such glamorous items, lucky for me I could afford not one, but TWO of them!

I came home and put the hooks in the garage so we can hang our bikes up and save some room now that the garage is packed full of our landlords boyfriend's stuff. After I took care of that, Laura arrived home and helped me work on one of the lamps. I will get some pictures tomorrow when the light is better - I have a feeling they wouldn't look very good with a camera flash. We got the lamp put together and we are using it tonight - it is a nice addition to the living room and I am looking forward to working on the other two lamps when I get some free time, which might be soon since we might take a day off on Wednesday and work a half day tomorrow.

Finally, I found this link last night and thought I would share it with everyone. It's National Geographic Adventure Towns and it is about Missoula, Montana. It is a neat little page about the town and stuff to do - what I wanted to point out was a paragraph at the bottom of the page regarding the economy of Missoula: Local Economy: Not pretty—Missoula County salaries average $28,185, and it's not unheard of to find Ph.D.'s waiting tables. Schools, hospitals, and the university are the biggest employers; a new DirecTV call center is expected to bring in about 900 jobs. Yes, you read that right it's not unheard of to find a Ph.D. waiting tables at resturants. Huh, that explains everything...

Well I see I have done a lot of typing a not much in the way of pictures so here's a few random pictures.

Laura and Amber geocaching in Minnesota last year while visiting for Nick & Becca Jones' wedding. This was a spooky area just north of Sibley, Iowa - well it was spooky during the night anyway. August 12, 2005

Darrin standing IN the fire pit we had for our fire at Lake McConaughy. This was a good fire! July 2, 2004

Laura and I waiting to get into Worlds of Fun in Kansas City. July 29, 2004

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Weekend Update

No, this isn't the Saturday Night Live weekend update, it's just an update from the world of Nolan. As I commented on Friday, our geocache is hidden and ready for geocachers to find. We made it a little harder than usual to get to though. Instead of just an easy walk down a trail, we put it on an island called Kelly Island where the Bitterroot & Clark Fork rivers flow together - or for you geography types, the confluence. This isn't an island like the one Andy & Amber hid a geocache on in Kearney - no boats required for ours. A little wading is required and then a short walk without a trail will lead to a 5 gallon bucket full of school supplies. We named it Kelly Island - Back to School Special and we have already had 3 geocachers find it since Friday morning.

Yesterday Laura and I did some geocaching and we found 5 caches. They were some caches we had been wanting to do for awhile and cross them off the list so it was nice to be able to complete them and think about some different caches for awhile. We might grab a few caches today if we get a few moments, but for the most part all the geocaches in Missoula are complete. We have to hike into the mountains or take a trip to another town to do any massive amount of caching. And since we don't plan on taking any trips in the near future, our goal of 1,000 by New Years might be a tough goal. We are at 744 right now so 1000 - 744 = 256. There are 133 days left in 2006 so 256/133 = 1.93 or in other words, we need to find two caches a day for the rest of the year! We were hoping that our Yellowstone trip would help us stay far ahead of that average, but in reality it just kept us on pace. Therefore, I think 900 is going to be more likely for us... So really anything between 900 and 1000 will do just fine!

...and finally, the picture I promised of the Sago Palm is here! The plant finally did something and proved it was alive! After all this time of listening to Laura tell me it was dead and that we should just throw it out - lets just say it's a good thing someone around here has a little patience... Ha ha! I will be trimming back the large leaves soon, but not too soon becuase the new leaves actually get their nutrients from the old leaves. Some people will cut the leaves off too soon and then the new leaves have no way of growing.

Well, that will do it for the weekend update. Until again

-=Nolan=-

Friday, August 18, 2006

Our New Geocache Hide

I only have a few minutes before I head off to work, but I wanted to share our geocache hide with everyone! You can see it >>HERE<<. I will post some more info this evening or weekend and tell about it. Have a great Friday everyone!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

News News News

What can I say? I am getting some good hours in at work this week and I am definatly tired. It's only 10:00 pm and I am TIRED!

As far as news goes, Laura and I bought a chest freezer this past weekend and now we can freeze all sorts of goodies! It is only 7 cubic feet but it will be enough for us to keep happy for a few years. Yesterday we stopped by Bob Ward's, one of the local outdoor stores, and bought some canoe paddles. They were 40% off so we figured we couldn't go wrong. Now we will have paddles for the duck boat and for our canoe which is still in Nebraska.

Our garden is starting to look pretty good. Laura and I pulled a carrot and potato this weekend - both were in great shape! We are looking forward to some more food from our garden. The pumpkins are looking good and we even has strawberries!

The BIG news came today though. Well, it isn't anything too exciting, but the plant I have been caring for so diligantly for the past 9 months has shown signs of life!!! Laura had determined months ago that the plant was dead and I was just wasting space. When I walked in the door today after work the plant and new leaves and is looking good!! I will try to post some pictures of it soon - I couldn't believe how quick everything happened.

I'm making this a short blog tonight. I need to get some sleep - only 2 days left in the work week! Until again

-=Nolan=-

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Thorofare: Day Five & Six

It's another week of overtime for me, so I am getting in a lot of hours at work, but at the same time I am getting a few things done around the house as well. I will talk about those things tomorrow though. Today I am gonna finish up the Thorofare trip. I am combinding day five and six because day six was only about 5 hours long and consisted of very little. Here goes...

Picking up where we left off, we were in a ferocious life & death fight with a pack of wolves, bears, lions and a small woodchuck named Gregory. Just then an eagle swooped in and saved the paniced hikers.... No wait, that's not right - it went something more like this:

When we awoke in the morning around 6:30 the wolves were howling again. This time we could hear the pack across the valley and a lone wolf howling behind us somewhere up the creek we were camping by. There was frost on the ground again and the tents had ice on them from the dew. We started a fire and got some water boiling on the stoves so we could have a cup of oatmeal and some hot apple cider. We were out of hot cocoa so apple cider was the next choice. We had camp picked up by 9:30 and we were on the trail around 9:45 for our final leg of the trek. It was only about 10 miles to the campsite we planned on staying at and we knew the campsite wouldn't be far from our pickup site the next morning. We stopped a few times along the way to eat some wild raspberries.

We made it to the campsite around 6:00 pm. The temperature wasn't exactly hot, but a dip in Yellowstone Lake was too tempting to pass up. That is until I got in about knee deep! WHOA, that wasn't as warm and relaxing as I thought it was going to be. I continued to wade and splash about in the waves for the next 10-15 minutes until I finally decided that the cool waters were going to win this battle. I can't say that I went swimming in Yellowstone Lake, but I can atleast claim to have waded about for awhile. Theresa managed to swim for about 2 minutes before finding the water to be a little cold.

We had camp set up and food on the stoves by 7:30. We watched the sun go down over Yellowstone Lake; as we gazed into the skies to the south we could see a storm building...We put the rain fly on the tent and zipped up for a rainy night - knowing it would only be a matter of time before the rain was falling. However, about 10:00 it wasn't the rain I was hearing - rather the wind rustling the tree branches. Slow and weak at first, then a little stronger and the branches quicked their swaying, until finally the wind was up to a low howl and the trees began to groan under the force. By this time the rain was falling quite violently and the raindrops were the large kind that really make a 'thump' when then land on the ground or on your head. I poked my head out of the tent to check the progress of the storm and decided that the dead trees around the campsite just didn't look safe enough to stay under. Lucky for us J.R. and John had set up their tent on the rocky shore line and there were no trees threatening to flatten us into pancakes. Laura yelled at her mom and Theresa and we made a b-line for the 'safe' tent. We managed to fit 6 adults into a 6x4 tent. How? I have no clue - but when J.R. looked at the shoreline and said the waves crashing into the rocks were around 2-3 feet high I decided I was glad I wasn't in a boat and trying to get to shore...

The storm let up after 15-20 minutes of wide-eyed wonderment. Most of the time I was wondering if any trees were going to fall, but a few times I thought back to a passage I read from a book that was at the Thorofare Cabin.

The passage spoke of the Hayden expedition (I think) in 1871 that took row boats across the lake during the winter. It took them all day and night to do it and during the night a storm caught them while they were nearing shore. When they landed the expedition leader wrote what he saw - that being ice upon everyone, formed from the crashing waves and the men had to thaw out their beards which were heavy and full of ice. Don't quote me on that - I wish I would have taken note of the quote when I saw it, but looking back it would have been an amazing sight to see.

The next morning we packed up camp for a short 1 mile hike to our pick up spot - we arrived around 9:30 and after entertaining ourselves for a few hours we were back in the boat and motoring our way across the lake. After being in the water the night before I was glad the boat didn't sink because swimming to shore in that cold water just didn't sound good... But we made it back to shore and then we went to Lake Lodge and ate at the cafeteria. Never before has such terrible food tasted SO good! Not that the there is anything wrong with the food at the cafeteria, but I wouldn't make an effort to stop there and eat - well, in this case I guess I did, but whatever.. All I know is I wasn't eatting out of a blue aluminum cup and I didn't have oatmeal floating in my drink! We went to the Lake General Store and had ice cream before hitting the road and making our way back to Missoula.

Laura and I drove to Helena for the night so we could geocache all day Saturday around the capital city. We ended up finding 38 caches for the trip and had a nice 'short' drive as well. It ended up being about 900 miles, but that's nice when considering it is 800 miles just to Cheyenne and 1,100 miles to Kearney.

Overall, I would do the hike again in a heartbeat. A little exploration is good for the soul and I like being far away from the mass tourist traps. I still have some raw spots on my shoulders where the backpack was rubbing but nothing that won't heal. I am looking forward to the next adventure! Until again

-=Nolan=-

Friday, August 11, 2006

Thorofare: Day Four

At this point of the hike I had taken over 200 pictures and our 256 MB card was nearly full. I had already used up a dinky 16 MB card for some mountain pictures and I only had about 20 pictures available to take. I was hoping to spot a bear or other wildlife so I was hesitant to use up pictures incase we would be lucky enough to view some animals from a distance...

August 2, 2006 - Wednesday - With the knowledge of a long trail back to our pickup point and our slow pace of hiking we decided to leave early in the morning to try to make our campsite from the first night and pick up our tents and then hike several more miles to another campsite. At 5:00 the alarms went off and we started boiling water for our oatmeal breakfast. After cleaning the cabin and putting everything back where we found it, we left a few packages of food for future visitors who will be in the cabin this fall.

At 7:30 we locked up the door and closed up the animal gate to the cabin. As we hiked away from the cabin through the frost covered grasses I glanced back to take one last look at the cabin. The sun was just about to peek over the mountain and the sunlight gleaming from the frosty air made for quite a sight. You can't really see the cabin - the building on the right side is actually the outhouse and shed. The outhouse is a two seater! Not that any of us graced the presence of anyone while conducting 'business' but the possibility was there. The other thing I laugh about is the fact that there are two seats - like this is a busy place that needs more than one outhouse because of the heave traffic and visitors. Ha ha, kind of a funny thought.

As I was turning around to continue down the trail I glanced over at Hawks Rest Mountain and thought I would snap a picture to show everyone where I had climbed. This was taken looking South - the Thorofare River is in the trees running along the bottom (out of the shade) and the Yellowstone River runs into the valley that fades into the background on the right side. You can get a good idea of what the cliffs look like from the one on the right side of the mountain - it basically looks like that the entire way around but it's hard to see with the trees growing all over the mountain.

Let me zoom in on the right side of the mountain and you can follow the path we took to get up this mighty beast! Following the trail, we went up the right side and came down on the left - you can see where we hiked down the mountain and then came to a 30 foot cliff which I decided we couldn't climb down, so we started looking for another way... Keep in mind, we climbed 1,500 verticle feet - up to 9,600 feet elevation - and when we couldn't find a better way down we still had 1,000 feet left to go down to the valley floor. We did finally manage to find a better way, it doesn't appear to be far from the route we took up, but it was a good distance, especially when you consider that there was no trail and we had to climb over downed trees constantly.With our lighter packs for the hike out we managed to cover ground a little faster than we did going in. By lunch time we had hiked 8 miles and we were all ready to eat some more food to make the packs even lighter.

When we arrived at the campsite from our first night, there were two Sandhill Cranes in the meadow and the refused to leave as we collected the tents we had cached several days before. These are not like the Sandhill Cranes you see in Nebraska, actually I take that back, they are BUT they are a lesser species. Don't ask me what the difference is, I am a Geographer - I can tell you what type of rock that is, I can tell you what kind of weather to expect, and I can read a map like a pro, but when it comes to animals I can rarely identify what I am looking at. Heck, even duck hunting is tough for me! ha haAfter we strapped the tents onto our packs we continued hiking. About a mile after the campsite we came across a log across the trail which had been recently overturned. We knew there we no other hikers in the area - we hadn't seen any footprints. The log had been torn apart by claws and it was apparent that a bear had been searching for food. As we looked at the log and talked about how fresh everything looked the bear surprised us with a roar from the trees. Obviously the log was a recent happening and the bear wasn't happy that we were checking out the grubs and goodies that the log had to offer. When the roar passed our ears we all perked up and those of us who were carrying bear spray readied them incase the bear decided to fight.

We decided it was best to just keep on hiking. I took to the back - where I usually hiked - and kept a watch as best I could over my shoulder to make sure the bear wasn't going to make an attempt to follow us and run us off. All the while I had my finger on the trigger of the bear spray and ready for defensive action should such instance occur. Luckily nothing happened, but for awhile the adrinaline was helping us all walk a little faster.

About a mile after the excitment with the bear we arrived at our campsite. The GPS showed us hiking 15 miles for the day and we all agreed that we would sleep without trouble. We had decided not to camp at the same campsite from several days prior due to the large amount of bear sign around the campsite. The new campsite we stayed at had no such indication of bear activity and it was a relief to know the bears didn't frequent the area. Even though we felt a little safer, we still slept with the bear spray next to our head during the night incase a bear would pounce on the tent or start rummaging through our backpacks during the night. Most professionals will tell you to avoid a bear at all costs, but when the bear comes into your camp during the night you should fight it off and keep it away from the camp area. I don't know if that sounds like a good idea or not, but I am glad we didn't have to do anything of that nature...As we layed in our tents and watched the sunlight fade we could hear the wolves howling across the valley. This time we didn't have just one or two wolves howling, it was more in the neighborhood of 8-12 and they were making a lot of noise! John determined they were probably the Delta Pack - the wolfpack that claims the Yellowstone River delta as their territority. As I started drifting off to sleep I thought to myself, even though the far off sound of wolves howling was an amazing experience I am glad they were across the valley and not close by. Sometimes the best way to experience something is from a distance...

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Thorofare: Day Three - Stick or Staff

People sometimes ask me why I carry a staff when I hike around. If you saw Laura's comment from yesterday then you might be asking why I have a staff and she has a 'stick' and what's the difference? Well it's quite simple to see the difference between the two if you know what to look for. As you can see from the photo of my hiking staff, it is about as tall as I am, making it a staff. Laura uses a hiking stick because it ends around her waist or lower torso. It's that simple to determine what the difference between a stick and staff is. There is no definate type of stick, staff, treking pole that is universally used, but most people these days tend to have something like ski poles (trek poles) and they use them for any hike. I like having the longer staff when I am going on big hikes because it allows me to hike in rough terrain easier and takes some of the weight on my back, if only for a moment. It also helps me keep my footing and balance. For example, when crossing logs across creeks I am able to hold onto the top of my staff while I use it to brace myself when I walk across the log. With the shorter stick I would be forced to keep my balance, and with a heavy pack on my back that can be a real challenge - especially when you DO NOT want to be wet for another 10 miles of hiking.

With that explaination I bring to you day three of hiking in the Thorofare...

August 1, 2006 - Tuesday - I was the first one up in the cabin. I heard the wolves howling around 5:00 a.m. and I wanted to venture outside to listen, but I refrained from getting out of bed for another hour and a half. Around 6:30 I decided I was going to go exploring - no one else was up and I was ready to go see what the area had to offer. The morning was cool and the sun was fighting to break through the thick low clouds. As always I had the camera along with me just incase I might happen to catch a glimpse of an animal or good photo. I took a few pictures of myself pretending to be a rugged cowboy - I don't exactly have the correct clothing on for the cowboy picture, but being 30 miles from anywhere I didn't really care to pack in my boots, spurs, chaps & hat. HA HA!

After about an hour of hiking around the cabin I returned to find breakfast cooking and movement around the cabin. Laura was still in bed, but she was awake and chatting with everyone. The picture shows a good view as you walk in the front door. You can see the wood burning stove against the back wall - that was packed in on the back of a mule! You can also see the cramped quarters we managed to fit the beds into - and look at Laura's face as she is laying in the bed - yes, that's a fish face she is making at me! The next picture is looking left as you walk in the front door. The white wood-heated stove is at the left side and the cabinets begin on the right side. That's J.R. there getting some syrup on his pancakes while Theresa cooks up some more for me!

And what would I do without a first aid kit? How about a first aid kit from, well several years back... There was a lot of cool old stuff in the cabins which is still used. J.R. was amazed by the 1903 rifle that was hanging on the wall and likely is still used when needed.

After breakfast John, J.R. and I headed out to the Thorofare River so J.R. could do some fishing. It was raining by this point so we put on our coats - in my case I put on a $1.00 poncho I picked up at Target, it was hardly worth the $1. We had to do some wading across the Thorofare River to get to some fishing spots and to continue on our hike for the day. That wasn't exactly a comfortable thing to do in the rain and the river water wasn't much warmer than 45-50 degrees. There's a picture of J.R. wading in the river while fishing.

The fishing wasn't too good, most of the fish had moved out of the river so we headed over to the Hawk's Rest patrol cabin which is ran by the National Forest Service. The cabin is about 2-3 miles away from the Game & Fish cabin. When we got there we were surprised to see horses tied in front of the cabin and a crew working on the shingles. It was nice to see some other humans and have a brief chit chat before hiking to the Yellowstone River to check out the fishing situation.

The Forest Service built a bridge over the river many years ago and it is still in good shape. The picture was taken from the South side of the bridge looking back towards the Trident Mountain - the one behind the Game & Fish cabin. You can see the rain clouds that were threatening us most of the morning as well.

After J.R. threw a few casts into the Yellowstone River he decided the fishing wasn't any good in the Yellowstone either so we started doing some exploring. Here's a picture of John and J.R. that I took from the bridge. I really like the area - the wide valley and the meadows were open to see the geese that were flying around and feeding in the meadows. I think if I were a duck or a goose I would look for a place like this too. The great views and the nice cool temperatures would be a nice relief from summer heat. However, the predators around might cause me to think twice.

As we were doing some exploring around the Yellowstone River we discovered some tracks in the mud. Another set of wolf tracks following the river and they were in very good condition for a picture. The tracks were quite large - like I said yesterday, they were no dog! Looking at the stride and the size of the tracks we estimated the wolf to stand a little over waist high on us - all three of us are 6' tall or better. Wolves don't really frighten me, but I think if I happened to meet such a large wolf along the trail I would be looking for some protection just in case!

I had my old pair of running shoes on and they are a size 12.5 - look at the size of that track compared to the size of my shoe! You can see the claws as well. WHOA BUDDY! After we finished looking at things around the river we headed back towards the cabin and decided to climb up on Hawks Rest mountain. We climbed up to 9,560 feet and had an amazing view of the surrounding valleys and mountains. The hard part about getting to the top of Hawks Rest Mountain was getting up the cliffs. The cliffs pretty much composed the entire side of the mountain. At times there were a few small flat spots, but cliffs are cliffs, and climbing them is tough to do, and it's VERY dangerous - the cliffs were around 100-200 feet high, sometimes much higher. We managed to find a drainage up to the top, which turned out to be quite a climb reguardless of the fact it looked easy from the bottom. At some points we were literally climbing straight up the mountain. Getting to the top was well worth the climb though. The first picture is looking to the South - the Yellowstone River (where J.R. was fishing) is down below and comes from the left side. Two Ocean Plateau is on the far right side - a river literally splits in two different directions on top of the plateau and one flows to the Pacific Ocean and one flows to the Gulf of Mexico!

Looking back up the Yellowstone Valley I took a panoramic picture. Actually I took 10 pictures and put them together in Photoshop. The panoramic isn't exactly a professional grade picture, but for the short amount of time I spent on the picture I think it looks good enough. The mountain range of the right side of the picture is the Trident Mountains and the cabin is down below those. You can find the cabin if you know EXACTLY where to look, but it's pretty hard to find even when you know. This is about a 100 degree field-of-vie, you can see the trees on the edge of the pictures, those were basically lined up with my shoulders when I looked straight out into the valley. The lake on the left side of the picture is Bridger Lake - we stopped by there for J.R. to do some fishing as well, but all we saw were ducks and a few other birds flying around. The picture doesn't appear very large on the blog, but clicking on it should give you a better image. We started back down the mountain a different direction than we came up in hopes of finding a better way down because there was no way we could get down the same way we came up - at least not very easily... We went over the ridge to the right in the panoramic and went down the drainage where we discovered a 35 foot cliff which I determined was impossible to get down from. There were no game trails - trails that the animals use - so we kept looking for another way down. We finally found a game trail and followed it down the cliffs to find our way back to safety after nearly 2 hours of trying to get down. As we were walking back to the cabin a storm rolled into the valley and rained on us again. This time it brought strong winds and a few trees were heard falling over as we walked back through the old burnt trees. It got rather cold with the rain and wind and it took awhile to get back to the cabin since we tried to find the most direct route back and not return the same way we came. At the end of the day the GPS said we had hiked 7.19 miles, but seemed farther with the climbing involved.

Before sunset we took some pictures outside the cabin and prepared for our big day of hiking coming up. We decided after such a slow trek into the cabin we would need an extra day of hiking to get back to the beach we were dropped off at and catch our boat across the lake. We boarded up the windows and prepared to make a quick exit early in the morning. Our stay at the cabin had come to an end....

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Thursday, August 10, 2006

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=-

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Opps!

Honestly, I was going to post day two of the hike today, but I got a little busy. Here's my excuse... Work is going pretty good. We knocked off a big job we have been working on for several months and now we are working on finishing another big job by next Friday. Today the boss told us we have the option of putting in as much overtime as necessary to finish the job by the end of next week, so we are going to work some long days to get the job done! That's good news for me, considering I took all of last week off, and a little extra pay never hurts. So that's my first excuse - I got home late today from working overtime... Second, I had to take a short nap from the short night last night and the long day of work today. Third I talked on the phone for several hours this evening with my parents and grandparents - it's grandad's birthday today so I had to wish him a happy birthday! And that brings me up to almost 10:00 pm.

I usually resize my pictures before I post them to the blog so people with slower internet can see them - namely my parents who still have dial up. Nothing wrong with dial up, but I couldn't blog if I still had a dial up connection - it's just too slow for the stuff I do.

SO, lets see here... As always, a good blog has a picture or something visual to look at to keep things interesting. I am going to dig into my photo albums I have been scanning and see what I can find for a photo today.

Ah ha! Here's one from my photo album I am scanning now - it's grandad and I. I remember that dog that is behind me as well, it's a pillow I do believe. This was in the first house I lived in until I was 2 years old - I still remember it and the room I slept in too...

...and here's a photo from last years get together for grandad's birthday. Laura and I couldn't make it this year for several reasons, mostly because it is too far to drive for a weekend... Grr, I don't like that. I think I need to be about 1,000 miles closer and then I will be satisfied - plus the duck hunting will be better too!

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Thorofare: Day One

I'm posting a little late tonight because I spent my evening playing Ultimate Frisbee. The smoke in the valley from the fires was a little bad, and there was a new fire just across the valley from us, so fresh smoke was filling the air.. It was pretty short lived game, we didn't have too many people show up, but that's ok - I got out and did something anyway.

On with the hike... Here's a picture of the pack I hauled around - it was about 55 pounds. Here's a quick run down of stuff that made up the weight: Clothes, ~10 pounds of food, pillow (white roll on top) map, compass, first aid, 2 water bottles (32 oz. each) snacks, harmonica (can't forget that), head net for bugs, rain poncho, flashlight, knife, propane bottle, single burner cooking stove, binoculars, batteries for GPS, the GPS, 2 cameras, sleeping bag (green roll at bottom), tent (that's Rylan's and it's the purple bag at the bottom) lantern, sandals (for crossing water), rope, whistle (never know) P-38 can opener (military issue during WWII - >>check it out<<. Like I said, that's a quick run down, there was more in there, but it's trivial... OH! Don't forget that wonderful hiking staff leaning against the bag!

The first map shows our route we took. The red is the boat ride across the lake, and the green is the trail we took on foot. It was 15 miles across the lake and 24 miles on foot. The cabin is the black dot in the lower right hand corner. **Note: You can see any of the maps or pictures in larger versions by clicking on them**

Hiking MapOn Sunday morning we woke up around 6:00 and had a quick breakfast before heading to Bridge Bay to catch a boat across Yellowstone Lake at 8:00. The boat ride took about an hour to go 15 miles across the lake, and then we were dropped off and ready to hike by 9:30. The trail was relatively flat, considering the lake is at 7,700 feet elevation and the trail gains only 300 feet over 24 miles - that's FLAT! Obviously the trail had more ups and downs than that, but for such elevation it was actually quite nice.

We had to find our trail after getting dropped off, that took nearly an hour to get to, but once we found the trail we picked up the pace just a little. We had a quick lunch just a few miles before Beaver Dam Creek and then continued on our way. We had to cross the creek with sandals or water shoes. We stopped there to filter new water with a filtration pump, which helps to reduce 'bad things' getting into the water and eventually into the body. The initial crossing was quite easy, but after crossing the river we were confronted with a marsh area which was a little short of a quarter mile long. Wading through the water was a little tough - mainly because the possibility of stepping on a downed log or stick in the water and making a mess of a foot.

The first day of the hike was mainly through the forest. We came across a few open areas now and then, but this was the part of the park that did not burn during the 1988 fire. We encountered that area farther to the south - where we hiked the second day.

The rest of the day we rather uneventful. We hiked until 7:00 pm - until we finally reached our campsite - and according to the GPS we covered 11.6 miles, but it was a little farther due to the fact that the GPS wasn't tracking our movements through the thick trees. We averages about 1.4 miles/hour. You can see where our camp was for our first night by the blue dot on the map below. We had our tents up soon after arriving and had our camp stoves boiling water so we could eat some warm food. After eatting we strung up our food on the bear pole. The park service requires/suggests food be hung AT LEAST 10 feet above the ground and 4 feet from any verticle pole or tree... Everyone was pretty tired and we were all tucked away into our sleeping by 9:00 pm - even before the daylight was gone we were all snoozing away and hoping no bears would stop by during the night. Our camp site was heavily used by bears as it was evident from the amount of poo which was everywhere. It was a nice meadow area with trees through out it, so I can see why a bear would like it - I liked it myself. Unfortuantly the bears don't seem to understand that we are just passing through and don't want to do anything more than take a picture of them and continue on.

Camp One
The map above shows our camp - it's kind of hard to see, but like I said, clicking on the pictures allows you to see them in larger versions. You can see the park boundary right at the bottom, that was still 11 miles ahead of us and we had several more river crossings to attempt. Day two tomorrow!

As for me, we are starting work at 7:00 am so I should be finding my way towards bed. It's nearly midnight and here I am all excited to blog about the trip!! ha ha!

Until again

-=Nolan=-