Day 8 - Travel Day from Goosewing to Wapiti

Saturday, 27 July 2013, was day 8 for our adventure in Wyoming. Unfortunately we had to bid a fond farewell to the Goosewing Ranch. It was a lot of fun with great horseback riding in the Gros Ventre National Forest mountains that surround the ranch, crystal clear waters teaming with cutthroat trout, relaxing atmosphere promoted by the weather, outstanding hospitality of the ranch hands, general manager, and with out a doubt the owner of this magnificent piece of property. We could not have asked for anything better.

We gathered our belongings, stowed them into our rented 2013 Subaru (very nice car) Outback, and headed back down the 17 mile dusty rock road towards the Grand Tetons National Park (GTNP). 

Here is one of many National Forest employees (others were Pronghorns, Trumpeter Swans, and Whitetail Deer) who said goodbye to us.

Bald Eagle about 2 miles from the gate to Goosewing Ranch

The grandeur of the Tetons greeted us as we drove out of the Gros Ventre National Forest. Here is a picture of the Snake River with the backdrop of the Tetons. It's hard to explain but these jagged peaks above 13,000 feet just seem to rise out of know where.

As luck would have it while I was snapping the above photo of Cindy at Oxbow Bend in GTNP a female Elk or possibly Mule Deer decided to swim across the Snake River over my left shoulder. I'm glad I got (1) the picture of Cindy (2) the picture of the Elk/Mule Deer, and (3) the picture of Cindy before the waves from swimming activity disturbed the reflection of the Tetons in this photo.

Possible Elk or Mule Deer swimming across the very deep Snake River in the Grand Tetons National Park

For the time being we left GTNP to our south and made our way into Yellowstone National Park (YNP). We finally made it back to Yellowstone after vowing to do so after traveling through this park 25 years ago with Michelle during our assignment change from Kelly AFB, Texas to Wheeler AFB, Hawaii. Look at the beginning of this blog to see Chris' picture near a similar YNP sign.

Here is one of many waterfalls we saw throughout the park. This is Lewis Falls.

We drove around the West Thumb of Yellowstone Lake, with stops at Grant Village, Bridge Bay, Lake Village, and Fishing Bridge. The Yellowstone River headwaters (flowing due north) are here at Fishing Bridge with the Yellowstone Lake as its source.

Yellowstone Lake with Grand Tetons to the south

What you see here is the caldera leftover from a volcano - now the Yellowstone Lake. It's a very impressive body of water, bigger than you can imagine and freezes over solid every winter.

We continued our journey through the Absaroka mountain range to our south and the Absaroka Wilderness to our north and finally out through the east entrance of YNP. 

One of many alpine lakes along the way and before we left YNP were Sylvan and Eleanor.

Sylvan Lake west of Sylvan Pass at 8,530 feet

Here are a few pictures (more to come) of the very distinctive geography of the high desert of east central Wyoming. This is in the Shoshone National Forest and very near Wapiti where our Trail Shop Motel was located. Wapiti, Wyoming (population of 177) was our base camp for the next three days.