Friday after work and a quick shower I headed into Laramie where I restocked on some camping gear I had managed to loose over the last year. I met Scott who owns Altitudes in Laramie. Scott managed to gather and sell every piece of useful camping equipment I could think of down to the handiest of clasps that took me almost 2 years and 3 countries to find. After a nice chat I stopped by the farmers market to pick up some Colorado peaches (infuse with tequila then make margarita :D) then stopped in Coal Creak for a beer and to look over my map to figure out where exactly I was going (of course later I would forgot said map in the car so I indeed had no idea where I was going) then headed out of town towards Centennial and the mountains beyond as the sun set out to meet me at the horizon. I made it through Centennial and was near where I wanted to camp when I saw some cars pulled off the road then two huge bull moose who caused the traffic jam. Pulling over and digging out my camera (packed in the middle of my pack, you would think I would learn) I got some cool pics of the two old boys then met a man who used to sell Caterpillar equipment to my grandpa’s old tractor/farm store in El Paso IL. Small World. Taking off down the road I headed on to park my car in front of the 8ft snowdrift that blocked the road I had hoped would be open.
I combined my water bottles and tossed my too-heavy pack (no sense being uncomfortable in camp!) on my back and headed off over snowdrift and hills just as the sun disappeared behind the towering ridge of Medicine Bow Peak. A couple of miles in I ran out of daylight but managed to get some amazing reflection shots of the sun setting in the calm snow fed lakes. I quick set up camp in the leeward cusp of some pine trees and dogwood willows near a clear mountain stream that soon disappeared into a 250ft snowdrift just to reappear in a glacier lake below. After gathering some firewood I grabbed my camera and tripod and headed down to the lake where I found an elevated peninsula that afforded me beautiful views of the sun setting on my right and the moon raising behind a reflected thunderhead to my left.
I have seen some amazingly beautiful things in my life, but nothing like the Wyoming sky that night. The more I live in cities surrounded by people and besieged by civilization the more adamant of an agnostic I become, but nights like that night, alone out in the mountains surrounded by nature at its finest shake and weaken my heathenistic convictions.
After taking the photo I had waited 4 years to take I retired to camp where I enjoyed the sound and smell of a pine wood campfire while a small meteor shower gave me a hundred chances to wish for a better life.
The next morning I woke and waited for the sun to warm my tent and night chilled toes. A quick pot of water set to boil made breakfast of oatmeal and coffee while a marmot ate his own floral breakfast not 8ft away. Once I had my fill of oatmeal I took my book and coffee (heaps of personality in and of its own) to where I could enjoy the sun’s warmth while gazing down on the aforementioned glacier lake below (odd to enjoy warm weather and get a tan not 20 ft from a massive snow drift)
Not ten pages in I hear a clang and turn to see George (the marmot) scampering from camp with his tail vertically swooshing with every odd step. I go back to find that the little bugger ignored my left over oatmeal (I guess instant oatmeal could be an acquired taste..) and had chosen to eat my wooden spoon instead! (How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood you ask? Well I would now know for a fact that woodchucks do indeed chuck wood and can chuck said wood in alarming rates would be that the said wood would be wooden spoons) Insulted that George (who apparently has not evolved beyond a rodents culinary convictions) would rather eat my utensils than my food I went back to reading.
Soon after I did my dishes, washing and whittling the chew marks from my wooden recently woodchucked spoon till it resembled more of a stick than the spoon I had known. I then grabbed my camera and headed out for a hike towards Telephone Lake where Mom and I used to camp when I was growing up. For the middle of July and wearing shorts and a t-shirt I was amazed at how much snow was left in the mountains. Each valley had its own drift, some up to 20ft deep with cavernous holes dropped out of them where the under laying stream weakened the underlying snow. After half a dozen miles with frequent stops to dig snow out of my socks I made it to the peak above Telephone Lake. Telephone Lake fed the stream where my mom taught me to fish over two decades ago. 15 years ago I brought my best friend, Joseph, up there to fish and we camped next to a tiny glacier lake that has a small open valley off one side and a jagged rock cliff on the other (with a cheeky little weasel living in an abandoned silver mine, but that’s a different story) A few years ago I revisited it with my great friend Jeff from Philly so he could see first hand the mountains I always talked about.
Fearing the distant clouds I slid/skied down (sledding in July anyone?) and headed over the miles back to camp where I sat and enjoyed my book before the inevitable rain. After a bit George came out of the undergrowth to say hello and I decided to make supper before the rain hit. In a jiffy a pot of chili (not freeze dried- one of the many luxuries of a heavy pack) was bubbling away over the campfire. Nose to the wind George came closer and closer and after I flung some beans out to him he came in even more. Thinking of redeeming my culinary ego from the morn I put a bit of chili on my freshly whittled spoon and held it out towards him. Sure enough George cautiously came up and ate off the spoon that yours truly was holding. Impressed with my culinary achievement of taming the wild beast (added to the list of converting two vegetarians and getting a date with a particularly pretty yet picky lady a few years back) my exaltation was cut short by George grabbing the spoon and trying to make off with it yet again. I decided that a culinary masterpiece must be prepared with all details considered and congratulated myself on preparing mine with apparently the most delicious spoon west of the Mississippi instead of one with less tasty timber.
Soon thereof the aforementioned clouds rolled in and started to rain so I retired with my book to my tent where I enjoyed the gentle tap tappity tap tap of the rain as I faded off to sleep.
The next day afforded me the same routine (how awesome is it that drinking delicious coffee while reading a good book above a beautiful mountain lake is a routine?!) then I gathered up my fishing gear and headed off after the stream of my childhood. I was amazed to find that its beauty and my trout catching abilities have not faded over the years and soon had a brook trout arching through the sky to land in the snow drift behind me. Now proper (as in old empire british proper) trout fishing requires one to tie the proper fly, match that fly to the current insect hatch, then cast that fly on a light line on an 8ft handmade bamboo fly rod to land gracefully without the barest disturbance in front of a trout which then accepts the fly as an acceptable food source and a picturesque battle begins with arched rod and leaping trout. Proper mountain trout fishing on the other hand requires one to crawl up on a turbulent stream on your hands and knees and drop in a worm on a hook (maybe with the smallest of split shots if deeper waters) into the narrow stream missing the dogwood willows while staying low enough not to spook the eagle-eyed trout (who do indeed have one eye turned to keep an eye for eagles who also find trout quite tasty) If you avoid detection and entanglement then you watch your line for the barest hint of hesitation that signals a trout has taken your bait. At this point there is no picturesque battle with arched rod, no gargantuan fish stories about leaping trout and line screaming off the reel into the clear water. There is only the singularly heave that ungracefully launches the graceful fish out of the stream in the most uncivilized and improper manner.
After catching about a dozen brookies, one from the inside of a snowdrift even, I headed back to camp where I enjoyed a hamburger since I released them all. A few years back I lived off trout for a summer, which curbed my appetite for consuming them if not the thrill of catching them.
As lunch cooked I packed up and said goodbye to George who came running to see what I was cooking. I wasn’t about to question his herbavorism with hamburger so I shooed him away, shouldered my somehow not-much-lighter pack and headed back to reality. It was a good weekend.
P.S. The great times did not end there, Monday on my way into town I ran into two cyclists towing single wheel trailers. I stopped to ask how the trailers worked since I thought about that heavily on my own trip across and found out that they were touring as many breweries between Brooklyn NY and San Fran as they could. Chip and Dave were their names and rarely have I met more extraordinary men let alone in the middle of nowhere Wyoming. I sent them back to my place to camp and headed into town to take care of business then headed home as fast as I could with a 12 pack of beer. Getting home I learned more about their trip and themselves as we drank beer and I cooked supper for them. Two pounds of pasta not counting the sauce that encompassed 1lb of sausage, an onion, couple zucchini and squash and 32oz of sauce left just a little bit of leftovers for them for lunch. The beer ran out and we moved on to whiskey as stories were told. Chip had traveled South America and Africa where he worked for a research team for a couple months. Feeding my own fascination with Africa he told more stories about the amazing continent I hope to visit soon. Dave, from Illinois, lived the last year in Sweden where he has been studying. Both exceptional men in all aspects of life and I was so glad to have them for the night. Riding self-sustained across the country is a pinnacle achievement for them in a long list of other accomplishments that makes them such a rare individual. I gladly call them friends even after such a brief meeting. BikeBrewAmerica.com is their website. They have a donation page so feel free to buy them a beer J
Cooked breakfast for them before work. Pound of bacon, 18 eggs and assorted veggies and it all was eaten :D how I miss the metabolism!
