Wyoming 2000 story
Horses, Fishes, and Rocky Trails
A narrative photo story from a horse packing trip into the Popo Agie Wilderness.
The Story
A continuous version of the original trip narrative, without the old page breaks.
Horses, Fishes, and Rocky Trails
Our trip started out with an early morning flight to Salt Lake City on Saturday. We then rented a Jeep Cherokee and crammed all of our gear in the back. We took a fairly scenic route on US89 through Logan, Utah then past Bear Lake and eventually along the Snake River until we reached Jackson, WY that evening.
The next morning, we got up and headed out, some of us more slowly than others since Keith had what seemed like a stomach virus (I won't discuss the details of that here!). In order to get from Jackson to Pavillion (where the ranch is located) you must drive through Grand Teton National Park. Here you see Keith and Jeff posing in front of the Grand Teton. Several people were concerned about our visit to the west since the media would like for you to believe that the entire west is on fire. We saw one forest fire at the base of Mt. Moran. This not to say that this was not an incredibly bad fire season (Summer 2000) but, our mainstream media is full of a bunch of sensationalists. (Speaker steps down from soap box)
The rest of Sunday was spent driving to the ranch. We used Wyoming Horses out of Pavillion, WY. It is seldom that you meet a group of nicer people. They were more than accomadating in getting us ready for our trip. We leased our horses on what they call a short trip. We leased 5 horses (3 riding and 2 pack) along with saddles, panniers, etc.
Lonnie (of Wyoming Horses) delivered our horses to Dickinson Creek Campground in Dickinson Park. We then spent the better part of 3 or 4 hours trying to figure out how we were going to get that much gear on two pack horses. In the end, everything fit OK and we didn't have to leave any of our luxuries behind. Finally, we hit the trail.
Our intentions were to make it all the way from Dickinson Park to the Cirque of Towers on the first day. Due to our late start and the fact that these were the steepest and rockiest trails any of us had ever ridden on, we had to call it a day 3 miles short of our goal.
On Tuesday morning, we took it slow and easy. Jeff cooked breakfast while Keith and I got the horses fed and watered. We pulled out of camp in the early afternoon and headed to the Cirque.
We only had 3 miles to go and at the rate that we were travelling it would only take about an hour and a half. This picture and the previous one was at a small lake on the North Fork of the Popo Agie River (Popo Agie is pronounced "Po Po Zhuh) where we stopped to water the horses.
We debated over where to camp for a little while and finally decided on here. This was a very large meadow about a mile and a half from the actual cirque. It had feed and water for the horses, plenty of trees (behind me in this picture) and had a great view. It's hard to not find great views up there.
The proper name for the meadow is Lizard Head Meadows and is at approximately 10,100 feet of elevation. Keith was feeling slightly better but far from 100 percent. I had a slight headache that could have been as much from dehydration as it was from elevation. We spent the remainder of the day being lazy.
We hung out at camp and got the horses settled in as we intended to hang out here for a couple of days. We spent the rest of the day just hanging out, reading, eating, chasing down the horses when they would start to stray, etc.
The next day we did the usual camp/horse stuff and then decided to take our fishing gear and start heading up towards the Cirque of Towers.
There was a small lake (3 acres or so) that was about 200 yards from our camp. We stopped there and decided to try our luck. We didn't have much hope as it was already around 2:00 in the afternoon. But, since it was overcast there were many fish feeding on the surface.
Keith managed to land two fish. They weren't huge, but they were around 10 inches or so. Here is Keith with one of his catches. We released all of the fish as soon as we caught them so that other people could enjoy them as much as we did.
I also caught 2 fish of a similar size. Jeff wasn't fly fishing, he was using a spinning rod. Before we got there, I would have bet that Jeff would have had better luck with the spinning outfit than we did with our poor fly fishing skills. However, the trout did not seem interested in what Jeff had to offer.
Here I am with one of my catches. Eventually the sun came out and spoiled our fun. We decided to stash the fishing gear and walk the rest of the way up to the cirque.
This is Pingora. It is not the tallest peak (approx. 11,700ft) but it is probably the most prominant peak in the Cirque of Towers. There are many fine climbing routes on Pingora but we didn't climb any of them since we had no climbing gear with us on this trip. Maybe next time.
This is us in front of Pingora.
Keith standing at the head of the North Fork of the Popo Agie River. The Cirque of Towers surrounds a beatiful lake called Lonesome Lake. There is no camping or camp fires allowed within 1/4 mile of Lonesome Lake. I'm not one to care for rules and regulations in wilderness areas (that's one reason why you go there, to get away from people and their rules) but it has helped maintain the pristine setting.
We finally headed back to camp so that we could let the horses off of the high line to eat and drink before evening.
These are just some shots of "our" meadow that evening.
That's the Cirque of Towers in the background.
Another evening meadow picture.
This is a picture of the Cirque on Thursday morning before we headed out. Our original plans were to leave Lizard Head Meadows by way of the Lizard Head Trail and head up to the Valentine Lake area. HOWEVER, at the trail junction was a sign stating that "This trail is unsafe for livestock". So, after weeks of picking a route to the best places, we had to change plans.
We decided to go to over the High Meadow Trail toward Smith Lake. We knew that this was going to be a fairly steep trail but we could not have known how rocky it was. On top of this, there was a large tree down that we had to remove before we could continue. Unfortunately the saw had been packed in the bottom of the wrong pannier. This meant that we unpacked all four panniers before we finally found the saw and then had to cut both trunks of the tree.
So, we finally make it to Smith Lake. Smith Lake is a very pretty lake set into a step glacially carved canyon. This makes for beauty but not for open grazing area for the horses. We proceeded to turn around and head for the last meadow that we had passed, one and a half miles back. We did get to see this bull moose on the way back though.
Friday was spent around camp and fishing. It wasn't the best camp site since we couldn't get as far off of the trail as we would have liked. But, it was home.
We hung out at camp, taking care of the horses, eating, etc. until Jeff and I finally got stir crazy and had to do something.
We headed down the valley to a granite slab. Since we didn't have any rock climbing gear with us, we didn't go too high. I probably went about 100' up but it was easy. The rock got steeper and more featureless up higher. It would have been an easy solo with rock shoes on, but in my hiking boots, I wasn't feeling very secure. Our camp is at the far right side of the meadow in this picture.
This is the stream that flows through the meadow. It's not deep at all but holds a lot of small brook trout. We caught a total of 14 or so. We released them all since they were all around 6 to 8 inches.
The next day (Saturday), we headed out. The trail wasn't as bad going from Smith Lakes to Dickinson Park. It had a few rock slabs that the horses tended to 'skitter' on. At one point, Jeff and I thought that we were going to lose Keith. We were nearing the end of the trail when a hiker dressed in bright colors came out of nowhere from around a corner. Keith's horse, Shane, spooked, did a 90 degree turn and was about to start down the mountain (the hard way). Keith did manage to stop him and calm him down before he could leave the trail.
The End
Jeff (Alferd Packer)Williams Richard (Jim Bridger) Bell Keith (Bill Tyler) Ledford
Sarah My horse A bay mare that stands about 16 hands and has serious issues!! Actually, she's really a great horse but has emotional problems when seperated from the rest of the herd. As seen in this photo, she hates having a halter on and will do everything possible to remove it.
Peacock Jeff's Horse There isn't much to say about Peacock. That's because he was a very sure footed horse with no known personality quirks. He was affectionate and willing to go most anywhere with out trouble.
Pete (alias: Tangle) Pack Horse This is a bad picture of Pete since he was eating (surprise, surprise, that's what he always did and ultimately how he earned his name). Pete had a tendency to try to eat along the trail. When his head was down grabbing a bite, he would take a step forward. Several times he managed to get a front leg through his lead rope. At this point he would spook and well, you get the picture.
Shane Keith's Horse Shane is a dunn. He was our lead horse and was so good and sure footed that I think Keith probably took a couple of naps along the way. Just kidding, but Shane was a good lead horse, very little input involved.
Navigator Pack Horse #2 Navigator was a good pack horse. We thought he was going to be a problem at first. He didn't particularly like getting loaded up the first morning but after that he ended up being a pretty good horse. He did have a tendency to be a little stubborn (he even looks a little bit like a mule). Occasionaly he would want to head off in his own direction instead of the way he was being led.