My friend John and I have been talking about taking a trip in the wilderness probably since medical school started about 12 years ago. To celebrate John finally finishing his fellowship we planned a horse packing trip into the Gros Ventre Wilderness with our new friend Jimmy and Wyoming Country Outfitters.
Funny how lazy doctors get over the years. It took 12 horses and mules, 2 dogs, and 3 people to take care of us for our six day trip. The night before the trip Jimmy was good enough to let us sleep in the hunting cabin at base camp and even fed us breakfast.
We headed up the crystal creek trail and made it 13 miles the first day. The second day we continued up the crystal creek trail to head over the pass. On the way up we had a little bit of an eye-opening incident we will call horse crash gulch. I'm glad the horses were OK and that we got to continue our trip.
We had some stunning views at the top of the pass above the treeline.
We saw a lot of watermelon snow up that high. We discussed a lot about what makes it, but it turns out it is red because of an algae called Chlamydomona nivalis which works like a laxative if you eat it. I'm glad we decided not to partake.
We camped about a half mile downhill from Shoal Lake which was full of cutthroat trout.
The first rain of the trip hit us, but it only lasted long enough to give us a small rainbow.
The next night we made it to Chateau lake and ended up spending two nights there. Jimmy and John caught a mess of fish. Including the biggest cutthroat of the whole trip.
We made a day trip out to Ouzel Falls and back and did a little bit of breaking our own trail.
It was quite a view.
The last night we slept at Jimmy's base camp on Jagg Creek and got to stay in one of his teepees.
I spent 5 out of the six days atop cowboy. He was a pretty good horse. John split his time between a couple of horses.
The Tetons were beautiful on our way back to civilization.
And we had to check out the sinks.
