Or I could head back down the Popo Agie and cross historic South Pass (7400’), the low pass across the Rockies that tens of thousands of covered wagons had crossed on their way to Oregon and California. It would be nice to drive over that. South Pass, unlike Togwotee Pass, doesn’t lead into the Snake/Columbia watershed. It leads into the Green River watershed, the largest tributary of the Colorado River, and thus drains to the Gulf of California. To get to Grand Teton from there I would head north up the Green River Valley on SR191 to Hoback Rim (7,921'), the divide between the Green/Colorado system and the Hoback/Snake/Columbia system: The Colorado-Columbia divide!
It gets better. Whether I drove up the northeast side of the Wind River Range on 287/26 or up the southwest side on 189/191 (most hiking access is found along this route), I could drive into the range from either side and attain Union Pass (9210’), separating the waters of the Missouri/Mississippi - the Green/Colorado - and the Snake/Columbia Basins. - a triple divide!
If I had been well I would surely have spent several days driving and hiking this every which way. Not being able to was a little painful. I was on the road to recovery but the doctor told me I’d be weak and coughing for a month. I wanted to get well as soon as possible to salvage what I could of the final leg of my trip. So I just drove up the beautiful bucolic Wind River Valley, regrettably passing by one of the two sites claiming to be Sacajawea’s grave (the other is in North Dakota), as well as the National Bighorn Sheep Interpretive Center in Dubois.
Just before the final climb to Togwotee Pass, I decided to see at least one thing the guidebooks recommended and so I drove into Brooks Lake to take a look at the Pinnacle Buttes. What I found was a $10 campground too sweet not to camp in. Despite its proximity to Grand Teton National Park it was luxuriously kicked back. It even had bear boxes, my first since California, and a style I hadn’t seen before. I sat and read Paul Schullery on a truly delightful and I hoped a healing afternoon.
Peace was interrupted by the afternoon tragicomedy of an enormous RV trying to work its way into a campground that was simply not big enough for the rig. Usually this is enacted by a couple whose inability to communicate spatially adds to the pain. Here we had two couples, and both the wife and the second guy were trying to give instructions to the driver, an effort complicated by the fact that the guy waving directions thought the driver was trying to do something other than what the driver was trying to do. I wondered if they were out there humiliating themselves like this every day. Inspirational dialogue of the day: “Will you be quiet!” Guess who said that to whom?
The campground sat on a wooded bluff above Brooks Lake. Pinnacle Buttes looked fine on the far side of the lake, but so did an unnamed mountain wall running closer to the campground. Horse parties from the adjacent Brooks Lake Lodge headed picturesquely across the prairie. After dinner I went for my first actual stroll since my Medicine Bow Peak hike, a bucolic ramble around the lake to the outflowing Brooks Creek and a better look at Pinnacle Buttes. Gorgeous light. The next morning laid a scenic fog over the lake.
The next morning I crossed over Togwotee Pass - “One of the most scenic drives imaginable” says Moon's Don Pitcher - but once again I got a major road construction project. Fortunately I was out early enough to miss the delays. Down into the Bridger-Teton National Forest where the construction was even bigger, way up off the road. I was thinking they were putting in a ski resort or something, but when I stopped at the ranger station I learned they were making improvements to meet the criteria for a scenic highway. For this they were tearing up half the scenery.
No comments:
Post a Comment