Great Western Trail

[RedRunner87]

Great Western Trail: Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana

Night 1/Day1/Night 2

The Great Western Trail goes from the border of Mexico in Arizona to the border of Canada in Montana. We decided to meet just East of Salina, UT and head North from there. Our overall goal was to hit the Canadian border and hit Grand Teton, Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks.

All packed up and ready to head our first camping spot. No off-roading today. Just meeting my friend in outside of Salina.

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Untitled by Red Runner, on Flickr
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Camp Night 1
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The Official Start of the Trail: Day 1/Night 2

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Officially hit the Great Western Trail
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[RedRunner87]

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Well this trail is closed! We had to find out way around this trail. Looks like there may have been fire where this trail went to.

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Camp Night 2
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[RedRunner87]

Great Western Trail Day 2/Night 3

Still in Utah! We definitely are not progressing as fast as we want to. We covering approximately 200 miles a day at this point, but we didn't expect to spend two days in Utah.

The Start!

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Well that's not good!
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...another locked gate!
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Camp!

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[RedRunner87]

Great Western Trail Day 3/Night 4

Finally we get out of Utah and into Idaho! We ventured out a little longer than we anticipated because of some mechanical issues. But we made it to camp in the forest of Idaho

...and we are off!

IMG_9433 by Red Runner, on Flickr
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Ruby lurking in the brush!
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At some point my buddies Tacoma picked up a wood screw in his Passenger Rear tire. We were debating swapping it or patching it. We learned real quick on the trail on how to patch a tire. Took us two attempts on the trail to get it to hold, then we patched it a third time at camp and finally held air without leaking.

Untitled by Red Runner, on Flickr
Untitled by Red Runner, on Flickr
Untitled by Red Runner, on Flickr

Made it to camp in Idaho!

IMG_9438 by Red Runner, on Flickr
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[RedRunner87]

Great Western Trail Day 4/Night 5

We get to our first National Park! The Great Western Trail skirts around Yellowstone but does require you to go through Grand Teton NP. We decided to go through the park, then back track a little bit and camp in the forest outside of the park.

Time to hit the road again!

IMG_9441 by Red Runner, on Flickr
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Well this is a random traffic jam!

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Made it to Grand Teton. The views were terrible because of the smoke in the air sadly
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Camp!

 

[RedRunner87]

Great Western Trail Day 5/Night 6

Glad we got some rain overnight, it cleared up the skies a little bit. We were able to get some good views of the Grand Teton. We had to go back through Grand Teton and began our trek towards West Yellowstone.

Grand Views...of the Grand Teton

IMG_9444 by Red Runner, on Flickr
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...ok we are finally off

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Since we had to had back to Colorado on Friday, we decided to backtrack to West Yellowstone and then explore Yellowstone NP on Thursday. It was already a 12 hour drive from Yellowstone so we didn't want to venture any further.

IMG_9450 by Red Runner, on Flickr

 

[RedRunner87]

Great Western Trail Day 6/Night 7

We decided to not continue on with the Great Western Trail because of the drive back to Colorado the following day. We spend the day exploring Yellowstone NP instead.

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[BLand Cruiser]

Nice! Did you see many people on the trail?

 

[RedRunner87]

Nice! Did you see many people on the trail?

In Utah we did. I think the Skyline trail is pretty popular. But once we were in ID, WY and MT there weren't many people on the trails.

 

[SoCal_80]

Ran this last year from southern Arizona to the Grand Canyon area. Great trail!


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[dierkz]

Wonderful expedition! Great photos

 

[RedRunner87]

Ran this last year from southern Arizona to the Grand Canyon area. Great trail!


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I really want to run this section, however my buddy is from Phoenix and always shoots down camping in AZ boo

Wonderful expedition! Great photos

Thanks! It was a ton of fun

 

[RedRunner87]

Great Western Trail Day 7

This was our go-home-day. We left West Yellowstone at 2am and had a 12 hour drive back to Colorado Springs. It rained all night and was pretty mucky in the morning packing up. We got some cool sites while driving through the mountains to Eastern Wyoming

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Ruby got a little dirty on this trip

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[AggieOE]

Looks like a great trip! I like single car travel but something feels much grander about a convoy, even a two-car expedition. I'm hoping to convince some of my friends to do one of these trails with me. Thanks for the write-up!

 

[SoCal_80]

Nice!!!


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