JeepinBear
Explorer
Hey all,
FLYFISHEXPERT, myself, our wives, and his dog went on a trip up to Ashton Idaho to see if we could get across to Flagg Ranch (in between Yellowstone and Grand Teton NP). Michelle and I made it across this past summer and posted a trip report.
This time however, we were greeted at the trailhead that said the road was "impassable to vehicles". Well, this just made us want to try even harder to make it across. :exclaim:
You could tell the road had seen some snow in recent weeks, but not recent days as it was pretty hard packed and very rutted from previous travelers.
Along the way I remember thinking that some of the tire tracks looked like passenger tires or very light truck tread patterns. Well, at almost 7K feet, along a particularly snow covered part of thr route, that was actually starting to sofetn up a bit...we encountered a late model Chevy Impala...stuck in the snow and seemingly abandoned?!?
I told Michelle to grab her pistol and keep it close, and I strapped on my .454 before approaching the car. Beau & Krista approached too...cautiously...just in case.
When we got up to the car, we could see where someone had tried to get it unstuck. We saw where someone had pissed in the snow, sat in the bank on the driver side, and two sets of tracks heading off.
We also noticed the car had OHIO tags and was a RENTAL?!? (Idenified by the bar code on the driver side rear window). The car appeared to have been there at least two days.
Now, maybe we atch too much CSI, but it seemed like we stumbled onto something quite odd...that car simply had no business being where it was. There was also a woman's jacket and gloves neatly folded in the back seat.
We yelled for a while and followed the tracks a bit but soon realized some fresh snowmobile tracks were noticeable.
Beau tried reaching help on his new Yaesu, but had some difficulty with the radio settings.
I could have used the Jeep and winched it aside enough for us to proceed, but we decided to return to Ashton. We wen to a local gas station and they had not heard anything about it. So, we caleld the local Sheriff in St. Anthony. We then called the Teton County Sheriff (in Jackson, WY) to report what we saw. We provided a lat/lon for the car and a description. I was bummed thinking that i could have been a real Jack Bauer if I had snapped pics with my Blackberry and quickly shot them over to the Sheriff...darn...opportunity to be uber-cool missed again. The TC Sheriff had not had a report yet but was appreciative of the lead...and they confirmed to us that it was a rental when they ran the plates.
We went by highway to Jackson, and caleld the TC Sheriff again. They told us the they had found where the peopel were. They "got out" the previous night (didn't say how...i suppose a snowmobiler) and that they were travelers who had gone too far. They were at a local hotel and were waiting on a tow from the Ashton side...
Of course, Michelle is CONVINCED there was something sinister involved...who knows?
We walked around Jackson a bit and had dinner at Bubba's...good BBQ before travelling home to SE Idaho.
You can view all the pics from the trip here...
http://picasaweb.google.com/Patrick.Behrendt/2008AshtonToJackson#
Beau also made a map with the locationof the car.
FLYFISHEXPERT, myself, our wives, and his dog went on a trip up to Ashton Idaho to see if we could get across to Flagg Ranch (in between Yellowstone and Grand Teton NP). Michelle and I made it across this past summer and posted a trip report.
This time however, we were greeted at the trailhead that said the road was "impassable to vehicles". Well, this just made us want to try even harder to make it across. :exclaim:
You could tell the road had seen some snow in recent weeks, but not recent days as it was pretty hard packed and very rutted from previous travelers.
Along the way I remember thinking that some of the tire tracks looked like passenger tires or very light truck tread patterns. Well, at almost 7K feet, along a particularly snow covered part of thr route, that was actually starting to sofetn up a bit...we encountered a late model Chevy Impala...stuck in the snow and seemingly abandoned?!?
I told Michelle to grab her pistol and keep it close, and I strapped on my .454 before approaching the car. Beau & Krista approached too...cautiously...just in case.
When we got up to the car, we could see where someone had tried to get it unstuck. We saw where someone had pissed in the snow, sat in the bank on the driver side, and two sets of tracks heading off.
We also noticed the car had OHIO tags and was a RENTAL?!? (Idenified by the bar code on the driver side rear window). The car appeared to have been there at least two days.
Now, maybe we atch too much CSI, but it seemed like we stumbled onto something quite odd...that car simply had no business being where it was. There was also a woman's jacket and gloves neatly folded in the back seat.
We yelled for a while and followed the tracks a bit but soon realized some fresh snowmobile tracks were noticeable.
Beau tried reaching help on his new Yaesu, but had some difficulty with the radio settings.
I could have used the Jeep and winched it aside enough for us to proceed, but we decided to return to Ashton. We wen to a local gas station and they had not heard anything about it. So, we caleld the local Sheriff in St. Anthony. We then called the Teton County Sheriff (in Jackson, WY) to report what we saw. We provided a lat/lon for the car and a description. I was bummed thinking that i could have been a real Jack Bauer if I had snapped pics with my Blackberry and quickly shot them over to the Sheriff...darn...opportunity to be uber-cool missed again. The TC Sheriff had not had a report yet but was appreciative of the lead...and they confirmed to us that it was a rental when they ran the plates.
We went by highway to Jackson, and caleld the TC Sheriff again. They told us the they had found where the peopel were. They "got out" the previous night (didn't say how...i suppose a snowmobiler) and that they were travelers who had gone too far. They were at a local hotel and were waiting on a tow from the Ashton side...
Of course, Michelle is CONVINCED there was something sinister involved...who knows?
We walked around Jackson a bit and had dinner at Bubba's...good BBQ before travelling home to SE Idaho.
You can view all the pics from the trip here...
http://picasaweb.google.com/Patrick.Behrendt/2008AshtonToJackson#
Beau also made a map with the locationof the car.
