ITTOG's Overlanding Trips

[ITTOG]

Looking at the trail leading down from Hurricane Pass.


The valley we are going to.


But first, a final pic of the Tetons


The main trail had an offshoot that took you to this glacier. It was pretty cool to be up close to it.


Some parting pic's descending from Hurricane Pass.








To be continued...

 

[Todd780]

But first, a final pic of the Tetons
View attachment 635403


To be continued...

Man, sucks to be on a hike and all of the sudden get a pie to the face. That must have been unexpected.

 

[ITTOG]

Man, sucks to be on a hike and all of the sudden get a pie to the face. That must have been unexpected.

Yeah what a surprise, right!

 

[ITTOG]

God said, "Let there be waterfalls!".








This is the last one I will share for this day but can you believe I only have about half of them here. It was crazy how many there were.


Okay, I promise, this is the last one. But just for this day.

Finally, made it to camp and it was great to get the pack off. As we set up camp my knee started to feel better. After about an hour I was able to walk without a limp. So it appears my knee just didn't like the weight of my pack.

The recorded statistics for the day are as follows.
Mileage: 9.3
Altitude Gain: 1,681
Duration: 7:10

 

[ITTOG]

August 28 - Day 6
The route for the day is to leave the Cascade Canyon South Fork campsites and go to the parking lot at the String Lake Trailhead. The trails along the route are South Fork Cascade Canyon Trail, Cascade Canyon Trail, Cascade Canyon Horse Trail, Jenny Lake Loop, and String Lake Trail.


The plan before my knee issue was to go into Paintbrush Canyon. You can see this route was much longer and a lot more elevation gain. At the time I was focused on getting to the car but now I am really disappointed we didn't get to take the original route.


I can't believe it is the last day. It went by so fast that I was sad to think about taking the shorter route. However, that quickly went away once I was up and on my hurting knee. It seems like this wonderful experience is becoming overshadowed by my stupid knee.

So the morning started out with excitement when a bear decided to walk by our camp. Both of us were in different locations about 25' to 30' away from camp for various reasons and this bear came by. Given we were "in camp" we didn't have our bear spray. David thought it was me again so didn't even know it was a bear. But the bear sauntered by looking for food and found where we had put our bear cannisters. We had already moved them into camp since we were packing but thankfully the bear did not find the trail to the cannisters and ended up walking by. It was a tense five minutes waiting for him to leave so I could get to my bear spray.

The view right after leaving camp was beautiful.


We can't go a day without waterfalls.







The views in this section was always so stunning. This area may be the most beautiful in the park.


Some of the water crossings were cool/unique.


To be continued...

 

[Pacific Northwest yetti]

These never get old!!
Thank you for sharing.

 

[Mekcanix]

wow I just discovered this, looks like I have some catching up to do very cool

 

[ITTOG]

These never get old!!
Thank you for sharing.

wow I just discovered this, looks like I have some catching up to do very cool

Glad you guys are enjoying it.

 

[ITTOG]

Another cool waterfall to gaze at in wonderment.




Looking back at the Tetons.


Finally, on the final day I get to see a bull and cow moose. I guess the best truly was saved for last. I could have watched these guys for hours. Just so cool to see them so close in the wild.







Some of the views up the valley back where we came from were so picturesque.




Towards the end of our hike we crossed paths with this bear cub. The vegetation in the area was high and thick and we never saw mom which was a little unnerving.


I had told Alex several times before and during the trip to watch bird activity and listening to them can help identify when a predator is around. After leaving the bear we were able to see this in action. As we were coming up on a bend I could hear the birds being a bit upset and then seeing their movement was sure there was something they didn't like. So we slowed our pace and really looked around and sure enough the cub showed up again. It was nice to have this validated. The cub actually followed us for a while and we crossed paths with it on the trail a couple times. So an awesome end to the hike to have this guy around even if it was so unnerving with never seeing mom.

Our parting shot for the park looking back at the Tetons. What an experience!


The recorded statistics for the hike today are as follows.
Mileage: 9.6
Altitude Gain: 224
Duration: 5:02

Every good adventure, especially one with a lot of physical labor, needs to be celebrated. So we decided to go to The Gun Barrel Steak & Game House (https://jackson.gunbarrel.com/) for dinner. Unfortunately they were completely booked until 8:30. I like dinner by 5 so this was hard on me but to ease my troubled mind and more importantly, stomach, we decided to hit a pub around 5 for beer and appetizers. The pub was nice but didn't compare to The Gun Barrel Steak & Game House. The food was great and the place was really cool and had a lot of "cowboy artifacts" from the area because it was formerly the Wyoming Wildlife Museum & Taxidermy. To me it is a must visit if you are ever in the area.

 

[ITTOG]

August 29
With time to burn before catching our flights home we decided to drive around the park and get a few pics from a distance.






It was such a wonderful trip. I would like to do it again but ensure I get to do the part I missed.


Hike Totals
Mileage: 62.5
Altitude Gain: 13,175
Duration: 47:39




“In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.”

– John Muir

 

[ITTOG]

My next trip turned out to be solo due to Covid-19. Here is just a peak at it while I write up a report.

This trip involves miles of trails on four wheelers. My favorite way to hit the trails.


There are good views all over but really, just being in the woods is fine with me. I am fine if I can't see the forest from the trees.




A lot of the trails are easy to ride with an ATV but some get difficult. Sometimes I have to use my winch.


Other times, things go wrong.

 

[ITTOG]

Annual Boys Weekend

We refer to this trip as boys weekend. Just a bunch of guys (family) riding trails and drinking beer. For some trips it is drinking beer and riding the trails. But this year it was different due to COVID-19. So there was only going to be a group of three.

Day 0
For me it is a 6.5 hour drive to the cattleguard at the ranch we travel through and then an additional 1.25 hours to our shack. So it is a lot of driving for me and I always go a day early so I can be there by the time everyone else arrives which is usually by 11 AM. The 6.5 hours are highway but the final 1.25 hours is only about four miles. It is rough so four-wheel drive vehicles are required. I arrived about 9:30 PM and immediately unloaded and went to bed.

It might be helpful to know this is in the mountains in Oklahoma. Yes there are mountains in Oklahoma but these are not like the Rockies. With base elevations around 600' to 800' the mountains are in the 2,000' to 2,400' range. So a short lesson. I thought there were only four ranges: San Bois (boy), Wichita, Ouachita (wash-i-tah), and Kiamichi (Kuy (like guy)-a-meesh-e). But I found out there is another, Arbuckle, which I have been too many times. Just didn't realize it was considered a range. Anyway, I thought it was neat that the Arbuckle Mountains are the most ancient formations in America between the Appalachian Mountains and the Rocky Mountains.

Here is a couple pic's of the big waterfall at Turner Falls in the Arbuckle Mountains. As you can see the falls is terraced and the bottom one is 77'.



Another neat place is Robbers Cave State Park in the San Bois Mountains. This cave was used as a hideout by the outlaws Jesse James and Belle Starr, along with a number of other criminal fugitives.

 

[nathane]

Those falls are amazing.

 

[Todd780]

Great write ups! Glad you never encountered mamma bear. You're right, must've been unnerving to not know where she was.

 

[ITTOG]

Those falls are amazing.

Yes they are. You can swim at the base of them so it makes a pretty back drop.

Great write ups! Glad you never encountered mamma bear. You're right, must've been unnerving to not know where she was.

Thanks and me too. Yeah the hair on my arms and back of my neck was standing up.