If yesterday was a short hike today was even easier. We had a 10 mile hike today. I was up and hiking early after the easy day yesterday. The only challenging part of today was going up over triple divide pass. Unfortunately we were completely covered by the clouds. When I got to the pass I couldn't even see the third divide which was 50 yards away. It was also cold and the could was filled with ice crystals. Being in an ice fog was kinda neat but we hurried off the pass.
On my way up the pass I saw my first grizzly bear. A cute little guy about 250 pounds maybe 50 yards away munching on some green shrubs. I have it a hey bear and it looked up at me with a mouth full of green stuff and it jogged off over the ridge before I could get a picture or axle could see it. On the other side of the pass I saw a moose. It was at the bottom of the valley and was just a brown spec. I'm not sure if it was a moose because if the distance or not but it was the right size and vaguely the right shape so I'm calling it a moose. It was way to far for a picture though.
When I finished the 10 miles by noon I was seriously considering hiking on. It was only 15 more miles to two medicine which had a front side campground so I didn't need a permit. But we had met some hikers coming down the triple divide pass that said there was two miles of snow approaching the pass. Good easy snow but snow. I'm still not confident in the timing it takes to hike snow after Colorado and didn't want to get bogged down in it with 12 miles to hike so I stopped for the day. The fire we built while eating lunch and large group of hikers definitely helped make the decision.
No comments:
Post a Comment