Bushwhacked!

Wyoming offers stunning and ever-changing scenery as we drive from Grand Teton to Lander.  Next stop is a visit to the Almas family from SLO who are spending time in their house there.

A job out of college took them here 30 plus years ago.  Karen's parents followed them and stayed, even as Bill's career took them on to Las Vegas, and eventually SLO.

When I was a kid, I always liked the Sinclair Oil dinosaur mascot. After we buy gas, Ben obliges my fascination.

The town of Lander is bustling with a Climbers Festival.  We arrive at the Almas's place and find Bill has weed whacked a clearing for the Chalet right next to the roaring creek, where son Jesse and his girlfriend Aubrey are fishing for trout.  Their sleek and rambunctious bird dog Tucker joyously greets us.

Just as we are backing into our spot, a friend and retired mycology professor, Jack, arrives to request permission to bring a group by to see the petroglyphs on the property.

A short time later we clamber up with the group to get a mini lecture on the shaman and face carved 1000's of years ago into the sandstone with an antelope horn tool.  Jack tells us a local boy damaged the petroglyphs by beating them with a hammer.  He heard this story from the boy's mother, who no doubt took the kid to the woodshed.  Jack and his dad found two peace pipes near the site when he was a youngster.  

Karen and Bill tour us around the property and give us a drink from the spring flowing out of the rock face.

We have a feast that night, joined by old local friends.  Aubrey is quite a cook and wows us with a beet and yoghurt dish and fruit cobbler for dessert.  In the "small world" category, Aubrey, who is from Chico, knows our neighbor Lyndal, whose wedding we are attending next weekend.  Jesse fishes til the last minute, but the trout are wily.  Next morning, we all head up the mountain for a hike Bill kind of remembers.

There is quite a bit of discussion about which fork to take.  Jesse is overruled.  We head up... and up.

After lunch, Jesse and Aubrey split to go fishing and we arrange a meet up time with a back up to meet at the truck at 7 pm.  Before long, we completely lose the trail.  

There is a difficult boulder crossing and much trail blazing before we finally reach our destination of Upper Silas Lake.  We realize we have added quite a bit of elevation and distance to our hike.

We watch a school of trout flit around in the stream and wish the fishermen were here.  It's almost 5 and we need to find our way back to the truck.  Two more boulder crossings, bushwhacking through willow thickets and leaping streams ensue.  We have faith in our leaders, Bill and Karen.

We find cairns marking a trail and Bill adds to them, he says in penance for getting lost.  This trail leads us right across a gorgeous meadow... where we are swarmed by a mosquito cloud.  It turns out Jesse and Aubrey also got lost and Tucker ruined their fishing by leaping in the lake repeatedly and chasing off the fish.  They got one cut-throat trout. We pile in the truck at 7:30.

We are starved.  We enjoy a delicious dinner downtown and recount our day.  Next morning it is time for all of us to depart.  Thank you, Almas family, for the hospitality and adventure!