I haven’t used this blog much outside of documenting my long distance thru hikes with daily trail journals. In 2024 I want to challenge myself to grow creatively by publishing a blog post once a week. To be honest keeping my trail journals wasn’t easy and I felt a bit more than burned out with writing by the time my hikes were over. Although I don’t have any major objectives planned (yet) in 2024, the year still started off with a backpacking trip. If you were a subscriber for my thru hike details I’d like to thank you for sticking around for the minor adventures I’ve been having lately.
On January first my fiancé “Val” and myself headed down to Jackson Wyoming to backpack on our skis out to a hot spring destination. I told Val I was itching to leave Bozeman and asked him to plan us a two day adventure before we spent the next two days resort skiing at Grand Targhee Resort in Idaho. Out of the many equally local and cold options, I chose the one farthest away that would cover the most distance. I was stoked he found us such a cool destination to ski to! Granite Hot Springs in Wyoming is a natural hot spring that has been developed by the forest service. In the summer it is accessible by a forest service road, in the winter they close the road and the only way to get to the hot spring is by cross country skiing, snow mobile, fat bike, or dog sled. Despite the road being closed, the spring still has operating hours and a fee to access it during the winter. I usually like more raw springs that are untouched by development but it’s nice to know that a place with operating hours was guaranteed to be accessible even in the cold season. For some reason I was very excited about using our alpine downhill set ups instead of cross country skis for the trip. This was the ultimate downfall of the plan. My previous experience of cross country skiing on torn up snowmobile tracks in the Colorado backcountry was not great so I thought a wider ski would be a better idea. It turns out this road was much more groomed and hard-packed by way more travel than my previous experience. Cross country skis were totally the move for the very long and flat road. The downhill set up did nothing but tear up our feet and cause us way more work which was not an ideal thing to do before spending a few precious days downhill resort skiing.
Val and I didn’t start our ski until well past dark at around 8pm. It was around 10 degrees when we started skiing and the stars were absolutely incredible. I wish I still had my camera with the ability to capture long exposure shots. We skied for 2.5 miles before deciding to set up camp for the night. Val is a polar guide and recently returned from an Antarctica expedition in which he was attempting to be the youngest person to ski solo and unsupported 700 miles across the continent to the geographic south pole. Because of this, he is sort of an expert in winter camping and also owns a very nice two person dual wall winter grade tent for us to share. He showed me how to pitch it and all the little hacks to winter camping such as angling the large stakes a specific way in the snow, packing down the area in which we were pitching the tent with our skis, putting all our things away in stuff sacks at night so they don’t become soaking wet with condensation in the morning, burying the valences with snow, and where we would have dug a foot well had the conditions been better. To be honest the snow was extremely lacking (as it is in much of the rockies right now) but it was still a very cold temperature for myself. After experiencing winter camping with him and using all the gear, I had a new level of respect and understanding for what he had to do in Antarctica alone. He was evacuated for nerve damage to his hand which left him with only one functioning hand. I have no idea how he would have been able to repeatedly pitch a tent like that in all sorts of weather conditions. He was often in high winds and storms where he didn’t see the sun for days.
For sleeping, I used my zero degree synthetic Kelty brand sleeping bag as well as a sea to summit reactor extreme liner. The liner is definitely what helped keep me so warm at night. I forgot what a difference it makes in adding insulation to a sleeping bag. The last time I had to use it was at the end of my Appalachian Trail thru hike. October in Maine is a very cold place to sleep outside every night. I was slightly cold but otherwise fine, Val on the other hand was sweating and very warm the whole time. We ate some frozen gummy bears and goofed around before we both fell asleep. In the morning, Val scraped all of the frozen condensation from the tent walls using a micro fiber towel. We boiled some water for oatmeal and hot cocoa and then spent some time just hanging out and enjoying ourselves. We made the decision to not ski the remaining seven miles to the hot spring that day. Both of us were not having a great time on our alpine set ups that were very inappropriate for the conditions. We would have had to ski almost 18 miles to make to the hot spring and back to the car that day. Both of us really wished we had our cross country set ups. Next time!
On the way back to the car we enjoyed looking at the frozen river we skied next to last night. We were both so glad we weren’t skiing 18 miles and bowing up our feet for the next two days. Luckily my good friend Seamus gave us beta on another accessible hot spring and we still enjoyed hot water on a river in the very cold weather.
Des Hikes Thru 