Sunday, August 29, 2004
Like the Creeks Flowing
08/29/04
Like the creeks flowing out of the mountains, taking with them all that has come their way, my hike poured me out of the high country and into relatively flat Wyoming. The transition took less than a day of walking, and I can not say exactly when the transition occurred.
I awoke in granite, lodgepole pines, and tairns, and I'm finishing my day in sagebrush, aspen, and rolling landscape.
What a great day of hiking. I had an ambitious goal that I was able to quantify at lunch: Get to Highway 28 by 7PM and not-hitch to Lander.
I didn't meet my goal, mostly because I thought the navigation on the roadwalk to the highway would be clear, and it wasn't.
I did make it to within near earshot of highway 28, but I arrived at 9:30 and decided to camp rather than not-hitch into Lander.
Today I saw four sage grouse, a herd of pronghorn antelope, a blue heron, and a beaver. Of course, I saw other stuff, and I just heard a pack of coyotes howling, perhaps at the full moon. One of the interesting animal things I saw involved a ground squirrel. It was lying in a rut of the jeep road I was walking. If it was dead, it looked freshly killed, but this was not a road much traveled. Perplexed, I asked, "How did you die?" Its eyes were still shiny, and no flies were yet bothering it. An unmarred, freshly dead squirel. Hum...
As it lay there, it turned its head toward me.
It was playing dead, something I've never seen anything do, especially these little ground rodents that are EVERYWHERE. I took a few steps away from the not-dead ground squirrel, and it ran off into the sage.
Seeing the pronghorn antelope was particularly exciting. I'd just finished a navigation break, and they were right there. The nearest was as close as a head mounted in a large dining hall. Did I mention how cool they were? I never thought I'd get to see antelope in this country. They seemed like mythic wildlife. I guess it depends on where you live.
And what about sage grouse? Are they rare? The guy at the base of Cottonwood Peak was helping the Forest Service map sage grouse nests. That seems like they must have some significance.
I stopped at the Sweetwater Guard Station Campground for lunch. The only people in the campground were really, really nice. They offered me stuff, including a very tempting ride into Lander. I accepted their graciousness and declined their offers. If they'd come up with fresh fruit, I'd have been more than willing to accept.
The walk into the evening was beautiful. The landscape was rolling sagebrush with occasional distinctive rock outcrops. The sky had only contrail clouds. The sun left a warm, lingering light in the west, and the full moon rose in the east.
Walking into the light of the full moon with my little LED headlamp was almost useless. Trying to cross the cow streams in the near-dark and trying to stay clean and dry was also almost useless. Tonight my shoes are drying with black cow mud on them. Yuck! Black cow mud sucks when you walk on it, it stinks all the time, and who knows what unhealthy life-forms are in it. Ugh. I also filtered (and treated) the grossest water of the trip. Yes, it was cow water.
Cows have to be the stupidest animals on the planet. They are stupid when they run in the same direction of travel of what they are running from. I even say, "All cows to the left of the road," but they don't listen. Hey, I saw calf number 222. How cool is that?
I may have also seen some cattle rustling going on. Just after sunset, a giant truck, what I deduced from the lights to be a semi with a cattle trailer, pulled up where I'd been walking 15 minutes earlier. It's a Sunday night. Nobody's doing regular cattle business on a Sunday night. I turned off my headlamp as soon as I knew what I was seeing. I didn't want to be dead.
