07/29/2023 – 08/04/2023
60 miles over 6 days crossing rivers and plateaus, all while dodging thunderstorms and encounters with animals in some of the most remote and untouched wilderness I have ever seen.
Day 1 – “Into the Woods”
After driving 12 hours from Portland, we picked up my buddy’s friends from the Gros Venture Campsite just outside of Jackson Airport. We drove an additional hour to the trailhead near Brooks Lake and Lodge. We arrived around 11am, ate our sandwiches, and loaded up the bags. For such a long adventure, my bag weighed nearly 55 lbs with the food and bear canister accounting for most of the weight. The first day was an easy 7-mile hike. We passed Brooks Lake and Rainbow Lake all while surrounded by staggering mountains and buttes. Then we started hiking down into the valley. The decline was nice going in but we all talked about what a pain it would be coming back up on the last day when our legs were tired and spirits haggard. After making it to the bottom of the valley, we took off our shoes and crossed a river. Approaching our 7-mile mark, we began looking for camp and realized there was an established outfitter’s camp and decided to set up shop. We set up our tents in a horse grazing pasture, and I washed off in the river. We had a fire, ate, and all chatted about the day. I dined on a Lasagna Mountain House meal, not my favorite but figured I should save my favorite meals for harder days. Everyone was pretty tired and knew tomorrow would be rougher so we decided to turn in as the sun set around 9pm. I woke up to the sound of an animal breathing heavily near my tent. Thinking it was a bear, I grabbed my bear spray and unlocked the safety. I laid still and woke up my friend, we both laid there listening to the animal imagining what it could be. When the coast was clear we both got out of the tent for one last bathroom break and then turned in for the night, bear spray in close reach the whole night.
Day 2 – “Elevation and Rain”
We woke up around 8am and investigated the camp for clues regarding the identity of our late-night visitor. Looking at the tracks in the morning, I realized the bear-in-question was a split toe, most likely an elk or moose – still scary but not as bad as a grizzly. I was starting to have serious doubts about the sensibility of backpacking in grizzly country if we had a camp encounter on the first night. After the investigation, we ate breakfast, had a little fire, and packed up. For breakfast, I combined granola, freeze-dried berries, collagen (contains about 20gs of protein and helps my joints on the trail), and water in a pre-made ziploc bag – cheap, easy, and delicious! We got on the trail around 9am, a bit of a late start for an intended 14-mile day. The goal was to hike through the valley, up the mountain pass, and go another 5 miles to a high alpine lake. The hiking wasn’t terribly hard but the heat made it a little less bearable. We hiked about 7 miles through beautiful, open pastures and found a spot near the river to have lunch and fill up water. It was about 1pm and we noticed the afternoon thunderstorms beginning to gather. The clouds were dark and coming straight for us so we set up the tarp and ate lunch as the rain came down. After about an hour, the storm cleared and we continued on. We climbed the mountain pass and were all gassed when we reached the top. The wildflowers were gorgeous and started becoming more abundant the higher we went. When we finally reached the top of the pass, the whole mountain range opened up and we could see the incredible plateaus we would call home for the next few days. We also saw our first grizzly bear grazing on the adjacent plateau – a comfortable 300 yds away and not in our path. We looked at the map and realized we had another 7 miles to our intended lake campsite. All exhausted, we decide to pivot and hike 2 miles to a closer lake, Perrian-Body Lake. The lake was breathtaking – literally – and the bugs were overwhelming, but all exhausted, we figured it would do and set up camp on a little ledge overlooking the lake. We washed off in the lake and collected water. More storms came while we were trying to eat and staying drying under the tarp wasn’t easy with the wind. Relaxing was difficult with the hordes of mosquitoes and frequent storms and everyone went to bed relatively early again. My head hit the pillow as elks bugled in a nearby valley.
Day 3 – “Plateaus and More Rain”
We woke up around 8am again and all prepared for what would likely best our toughest day. Because we didn’t go to our intended lake, we had to make up those additional 3 miles we skipped out on for a total of about 12 miles. Also the trail had ended, so we would have to navigate across plateaus using the map and our intuition. Right off the bat, we began climbing up the steep plateau and gained 1k ft of elevation over the first mile. We hiked past Crescent Mountain, a large, red mountain with snow surrounding it and saw a heard of cow elk tramping along. Brandon’s buddy walked over to snowfield, fascinated by the fact that he was touching snow in August (this was his first backpacking endeavor) and we all threw snowballs at each other. Then we descended the plateau utilizing a sketchy and steep ravine and saw a bull elk in the distance. Again, we saw storm clouds forming and again, they were coming straight for us. We ate a quick lunch. I had tuna and tortillas with olives and sundried tomatoes. We filled up water and with the storm quickly approaching, we set up the tarp in a tree covered area and hunkered down. Probably our longest storm delay, we were there for nearly 2 hours. We watched lightning strike distance peaks and shuttered as we counted the seconds until thunder to gauge how close the strikes were – some less than a mile away. The tempature dropped and I made tea, Kava with a lemonade packet, to warm myself. It almost tasted like an Arnold Palmer but we sweeter and tastier with the cinnamon complimenting the lemonade flavor. We saw a break in the storm and with 6 miles left to go, we started moving again. Rain came again and hail followed as we hike along the plateaus. We saw a gloomy glacier and began hiking down another plateau. It was nearly 6pm and we saw meaner clouds forming. We decided to book it to a nearby tree covered cliff and setup camp as fast as possible. We made our meals in our tents and tried to enjoy the sounds of the storm. I was a little nervous that we would get washed off the cliff but went to bed anyways. Thankfully most of my sleeping gear stayed dried and I slept like a rock.
Day 4 – “Sunshine and a Ferrytale”
We set our sights on waking up at 5am but when the alarm went off my buddy and I made an excuse to get an extra hour of sleep. After the extra hour of sleep, we packed everything up and got ready for the day. The usual routine, pack up camp, eat breakfast, and make coffee. We hit the road around 7:30am and immediately started climbing up another steep slope of a plateau. We were all tired but this seemed to wake our legs up rather quickly. We made it to what we thought was the top and realized we had to climb higher. This happened a few times. Finally, at the pinnacle of the plateau, we were welcomed with a beautiful and expansive view of the backcountry: rolling hills and plateaus that resemble the links in Ireland. Green grass and boulders scattered about the countryside. We figured out the general direction we were meant to go and kept hiking. We crossed a creek and tried to maintain the high ground to avoid having to work our legs more than needed. We could see Wall Mountain, Thorough-Fare Mountain, and Younce Peak. We had ambitions of climbing at least halfway up Younce Peak, the most remote peak in the lower 48, rumored to have a good amount of grizzly bear activity thanks to the thriving moth population that took advantage of the micro-climate created by the mountain shadow in the valley. After about 5 miles, we reached the end of the plateau and had a snack. We decided we would wait until camp to have lunch to avoid getting caught in the storms and discussed climbing Younce Peak. It would be an 8-mile detour and if we went to the top, would involve some substantial elevation gain. It would also be quite an achievement though, but with all the storms we encountered the previous days, decided to forgo it and walked down the plateau. The hillside was covered in wildflowers and as we descended we saw the trail again for the first time in 2 days! We stopped at the river, the headwaters of one of the large rivers we saw driving in, and filled up water and rested. We saw a party of horses and feeling haggard, joked about asking them which month it was. As they passed, they mentioned it was day 12 of 14 for them and we decided our joke wouldn’t be as funny. While we waited for the group to pass, we looked around the rocks and found some pieces of petrified wood. Millions of years old, these rock-like pieces of wood were perfectly preserved by the glaciers that passed through here millions of years ago. We had 7 more miles until camp and continued on. We passed fields of wildflowers, waterfalls, and beautiful mountains as the sun got hotter. We took breaks here and there in the shade due to the hotter temperatures. After our last steep climb, we saw our final destination, Ferry Lake.
We decided to go around the lake towards a grove of trees so that we would have fuel for a fire later and found another outfitter’s camp. Perfectly perched on a cliff, the camp had room for stock, a view of an incredible waterfall created by the runoff of the lake, and a few bear lockers for our food. Arriving at 1:30 pm, we set up camp and all talked about glad we were that we woke up earlier and missed the storms we saw forming over the plateaus we had crossed a few hours earlier. I set up my hammock to have a view of the waterfall and washed off in the waterfall before eating. I was blown away by this oasis and enjoyed swaying in my hammock. I ate another tuna tortilla for lunch and then went swimming in the lake. The bugs were worse by the lake but still weren’t as terrible as the ones at Perrian-Body Lake. We made a fire and my buddy and I went over to the meadow near the lake. The lake was huge with giant rolling hills on both sides. We watched benevolent clouds roll over the lake fighting like dragons as they whispered and crashed into each other. We stretched and laughed. I tried to do a headstand to see the lake upside but fell over and laughed some more. We met my buddy’s friends by the fire again and all talked, feeling accomplished with our actions over the previous days. We lamented that few people would ever see the things we saw due to unwillingness to struggle and carry 50-pound bags on their backs for days at a time. I smoked some pipe tobacco and when I was done, went over to the hammock and wrote a poem:
We all relaxed, sat by the fire, and ate dinner. That night I had my favorite meal: mountain house beef stroganoff. We watched the storms soak the plateaus as we realized how they were always so green. We watched the setting sun cast a golden hue over the hills and understood how this would be an excellent elk hunting camp: you could see into the valleys of all of the plateaus and would be able to determine where the elk were and where they would be going. As it got darker, we all hung by the fire and talked about life. My buddy’s friends went to bed and he and I stay up a little later hoping to get a view of the stars but the warm front slowly coming in covered the sky in a blanket of clouds. We went to bed around 10 pm. That campsite and lake was truly something out of a ferrytale.
Day 5 – “Drizzle and Descent”
I set an alarm for 6am, but my ringer wasn’t loud enough and we slept for another hour. A pattern for more sleep was forming. We did our usual routine and had a small fire. We left camp around 7:30am again and began our descent down. The goal for the day was to hike 10 miles to a meadow along a river near the base of Pentegraft Peak (elevation: ~10k ft). We were finally closing the loop and joked that now all we had to do was hike 3 days back to the car. As we started descending, the warm front spotted yesterday began drizzling on us and we put our tarps over our bags. The rain wasn’t intense and was almost welcomed after the hot day yesterday. The temperatures in the valley were typically higher than on the plateaus so the rain kept it cooler. We continued our descent and entered prime mushroom territory characterized by moist, cool conditions and tons of coniferous trees on a sloping hillside. We went along the switchbacks and I went to the back to go slower and keep an eye out for fruiting bodies. I saw a hard purple polypore with a white underside, ID unknown. I also started to see a wide variety of Agaricus mushrooms. I saw a few, young white Agaricus mushrooms (possibly Destroying Angel) and as we hiked lowered, I saw a few, orange/yellow fly agarics, one of my favorite mushrooms. I like this mushroom because it was one of the first ones I found and identified on my first backpacking trip after moving to the PNW. We reached an area that had been torched by a wildfire maybe 2 or 3 years prior and I hoped to see morels, although the likelihood was slim due to the absence of oaks and other deciduous trees that morels liked to grow near. On a fallen, burned log, I saw a velvety red polypore (possibly beef-steak fungus) and took some pictures on my friend’s phone. We had a snack (meat stick and cliff bar) around 11 am and saw the Pentagraft Meadows in the distance. The burn area had a bustling fireweed population, a pinkish-purple flower that, as the name suggests, proliferates after burns. This plant can be harvested and used to make a wide array of teas, jellies, and other tasty treats.
We made it to Pentagraft Meadows and kept a watchful eye out for bears due to quick access to field strawberries, blueberry bushes, and other plants that bears enjoyed. Then, we crossed a cold river and started hiking up again. The blowdown was substantial and we constantly had to hurtle fallen trees weakened or killed by the fire. Following horse tracks, I was curious how a horse could have maneuvered around the various obstacles but I was probably underestimating them. With Pentegraft Peak providing a large shadow and moist conditions, various berry bushes began appearing. A small holly-like shrub with bright green, smooth, and flat leaves, produced bright red berries that had a fruity smell when squished. A larger shrub with darker leaves and thorns produces red berries that turned orange when ready to be picked. I taste-tested this orange berry and found it rather tart, my buddy’s friend thought it was boysenberry, but after returning to wifi, realized it was not. My buddy spotted a Bolete with an orange/brown top, white pores, and stiped white stem, thinking it was a king Bolete, I collected a sample and later noticed it had bruise blue – not a good sign for the eligibility of edibility. When foraging on such a long trip, I tend not to risk eating anything poisonous and often collect samples to eat back home after identifying the specimen with 100% certainty. That way too, if I do eat something off-putting, I have access to modern remedies. Around 2:30 pm, we reached the meadow we would be camping at near the base of Pentegraft Peak and crossed a rather sketchy and long log over the river. We looked around for a bit and set up in a spot with shorter grass. Still drizzling, we set up the tarp. I explored the meadows a bit and found some more mushrooms, a patch of Agaricus Silvaticus – a brown/orange-ish agarics mushroom with brown gills and later found out, edible. I also noticed small puffball mushrooms scattered about the meadow along with tons of fruiting strawberry plants – a perfect meadow for grizzlies. We had a fire to dry off and an outfitter’s group passed by our camp on horses and told us that they were camped upriver. They also told us that they had to kill one of their horses the other days and had “cut him up into pieces and put him in the river.” They suspected that predators might be by later that night following the scent of the dead animal. That put us all on edge a bit. In need of a new rain jacket, I was cold and wet and after lunch, took a nap while the others braved the sporadic rain by the fire. I ran out of caffeinated liquid IVs and was extremely groggy and slept for about 2 hours. When I woke up, the rain had lightened up, and I joined my friends again. We all talked and gathered wood to keep the fire going. We jumped in the freezing cold river to clean up – a natural ice bath. We changed, warmed up by the fire, and watched the vertical walls of Pentagraft Peak grow darker as the day went on. We all ate dinner and went to bed rather early around 9pm. My friend got a text from his mom on his Garmen InReach telling us that there was a flash flood warning for the next two days and we decided if the rain was bad again tomorrow, we would hike out 14 miles instead of splitting it up over 2 days and prolonging our misery. As I tried to go to bed, I heard a large animal in camp and grabbed my bear spray tighty. My mind played tricks on me as I mistook the wind blowing across the rainfly for an animal sniffing our tent. My mind was put to ease when I heard the animal cross the river away from our camp.
Day 6 – “Death March”
We woke up to wet, cold conditions but no rain for the time being. We all decided to hike the 14 miles out instead of camping in wet conditions for another night. We left camp around 8am and started what we called our “death march.” Again, we crossed burnt forests and talked little as we sludged through mud and elevation. After about 5 miles we snacked and kept going. The rain started coming down harder and we hiked another 5 miles past lakes and mosquitoes. We stopped by a river on the side of a mountain, ate lunch, and filled up water. The hike was still beautiful but harder to enjoy considering the conditions. We descended into the valley we had camped at our first night and then started going up. My legs were cooked and I got sharp pains in my hamstring as I constantly slipped on mud made worse by the footsteps of horses. We finally made it to the top and had 2 more lakes to pass until we were back at the car. We passed Rainbow Lake and reached a small creek. There, we saw a bear. We thought it was a black bear due to its coat being made darker by the rain but realized he had a hump as he searched the meadow for berries. Unfortunately for us, the bear was 50 yards away from our trail. We yelled, “HEY BEAR” and it moved away, but then, realizing it was an apex predator and far stronger than us, it returned back to its original spot. We were tired and just decided to bushwack to the far right of the trail. We got our bear spray ready and started hiking. We passed the bear without an issue but it was an unwelcome final tribulation of a long day. After getting well past the bear, we had 2 more miles and trudged on through the mud and rain. Around 4:30 pm, we finally reached the trail and saw the horses of Brook’s Lodge being let out to graze. A special and fitting moment: we were exiting the wilderness as these beautiful animals returned to it. Soaked, we all piled into the car and headed to Jackson Hole and the familiar comfort of civilization. Exhausted but fulfilled, we had completed the loop.