Rawlins, WY to Encampment, WY

​June 21, 2019

We did our resupply in Rawlins in the morning and then packed up to hike out. We met up with Data, who was going to the famous all you can eat Thai buffet for lunch and we joined him. A few other hikers that we saw in South Pass were there as well. The food was delicious, but made it that much harder to hike out with a full pack and full stomach.

Much of the water south of Rawlins is non-potable, even after treatment and filtration. The pools marked as water sources are actually hyper-saline, and even some of the creeks still have a salty taste to them. Drinking highly saline water can result in dehydration, so we had to carry a bit more water than we were used to this section.

We ended up doing about 15 miles today, which wasn’t bad for leaving town in the afternoon.

At first, the landscape was boring and filled with trash. We were walking through a gas pipeline area as well. But shortly, we reached this cliff that represented one of the lips of the basin. Driver, who had been a bit ahead, was sitting on the ledge enjoying the view with his beer. We hiked down into the basin for a few more miles and enjoyed rolling hills of green sage brush. We had a great dinner party, enjoying some beers we had packed out.

June 22, 2019

Today was more road walking. The morning was pretty monotonous, but we entertained ourselves trying to spot antelope and deer, who try to hide in the bushes (their big ears give them away) or look down at us from ridgelines. There was also a ton of cattle today, and a pretty vocal bunch at that.

Late in the afternoon, we had identified a use trail on the map which cut off about 3 miles of dirt road. We decided to take it, and the first part, although it included a bunch of bushwhacking, was pretty straight forward. Then we hit a wall of aspens. This far in, I didn’t want to turn back so we squeezed ourselves through the branches and made it out the other side, scratched up and happy. It was a nice change from the road walks, at least!

When we emerged from the brush, I saw a figure walking towards us. She didn’t have a pack on, so I was a bit confused. Apparently she had just met Driver and was coming back to find us and invite us to the cookout she was having. There was a big group of volunteers out to help repair a fence and replace it with something more deer-friendly to help with their migration. We had coleslaw, pasta salad, ribs, and grilled pineapple. We were in heaven, not expecting any trail magic let alone from the most lovely people from Laramie, WY (a town we had stopped by and enjoyed on our road trip).

We hiked on a bit further (it had gotten really chilly!) and set up camp on a grassy hill with wildflowers. It was one of the nicest campsites we’ve had in the basin so far.

June 23, 2019

We woke up to snow covering our tent, and still falling from the sky. This wasn’t supposed to happen, it’s officially summer, and we flipped to the basin to avoid snow!

Radio and I set off early in the morning, when snow still dusted the landscape. The dirt roads we were following turned to mud, and we were sliding all over the place.

However the morning dried up and the sun came out, and we had a nice morning. I came to a beautiful water source, a river flowing through a meadow and stopped at the end of the bridge to eat some snacks and enjoy the beauty of the trail. Radio came down a few minutes later and joined me, scaring a herd of cows from the meadow. Then, they all lined up and wanted to cross the bridge (that we were at the other end of). I’d never seen so many cows so determined and close to us. Eventually, they gave up and moved down the river. But still, it was an odd experience.

Later on in the day, we saw a beautiful white mare with a black tail and her brown foal. These wild horses ran around easily and kept their distance from us. Driver was able to capture a photo with his camera, thankfully.

At the end of the day we started hiking real trail, not dirt road. It was beautiful, but there were plenty of blowdowns slowing our progress. It was also cold all day and started hailing on us while we were walking through a thick forest of dead trees.

We knew there was snow before Encampment, so we camped at the Deep Jack trailhead to save the snow for tomorrow.

June 24, 2019

We woke up to a beautiful, sunny morning. The trail started out pretty dry, with some snow patches here and there. When we crossed the creek, the trail became completely covered in snow. There weren’t many tracks to follow since it snowed yesterday, but we tried our best to stay on trail despite having to check our phones every three seconds.

We ran into another southbound hiker, but he was only hiking about 12 miles a day so we quickly passed him.

The rest of the day was a slog through completely snow covered trail without any tracks to follow. We summited Bridger Peak and headed down to the 70 where we hitched to Encampment, tired and wet. A girl in a nicely outfitted Sprinter van picked us up - her boyfriend was hiking the trail just a bit behind us.

We got our motel room and burgers and beers, trying to figure out the best way to get to Steamboat Springs.