Early Sunday morning I headed down to Pinedale, WY with the hopes of hiking to Titcomb Lakes, but in my research, I failed to realize that Pinedale is actually a couple thousand feet higher than Jackson which means that I only made it about a mile or so into the hike before hitting too much snow to continue. 

So, instead, I headed to Green River Lake campground that the guy at the visitor’s center recommended. He wasn’t kidding that it was really remote.

I lost cell phone reception about 3 miles onto the dirt road which went on for 20 miles until I finally reached the actual campground. I had passed so many great camp site options along the river that I decided not to stay in the official campground and instead find a spot along the river to spend the night. I ended up driving back about 11 miles until I found a spot along a bend in the river that looked like a good option and drove my car down beside the river. 

It was a perfect spot with lots of downed wood and a pre-built fire ring, so I was able to build a small fire while watching the sun set over the mountains. There was a short shower, but nothing more than just sprinkles, so I went ahead and made a fire while waiting for the sunset.

Needless to say, I was not disappointed with the sunset that evening – it was amazing! I went to bed pretty early that night (soon to be a theme of my trip) and I was woken up to the sound of something large splashing in the river. Of course, my first thought was a bear (because why wouldn’t a bear go swimming at night?!), but when I turned on my flashlight and shined it out my tent, I couldn’t see anything, but I did hear something fly away. I’m assuming it was probably geese that had some in to stay for the night and I interrupted their settling-in procedures. Luckily, after that, I didn’t have any other strange noises in the middle of the night!

It was surprisingly cold that night, probably due to the lack of anything to block the wind around my tent, so I put on all the layers I had brought and was still a little on the cold side. I knew that I had a hand warmer in my first aid kit in the car, but I really didn’t want to get out of my tent, so I stayed put and managed to get some good sleep.

The next morning when I woke up, my tent was soaked! I hadn’t thought about the fact that there was no tree coverage and I was right next to the water, so my tent had collected a ton of condensation overnight. Luckily, I was able to shake a lot of the water off and then hang it over the seats in my SUV to dry out before I headed to my next stop. I would definitely recommend having a plan for this if you’re going to be camping in the open or (as happened to me later in the trip) you get caught in a lot of rain which will also soak your tent.

After the half marathon on Saturday, I took a quick shower and decided to wander around the park a little bit to try to figure out my options for hiking later in the week. My first stop was a visitor’s center and after talking with several rangers about the trails I originally wanted to hike, they felt that the snow was still probably too deep / treacherous to go without an ice ax, so I quickly nixed that idea and figured I would do some day hikes instead and just camp closer to civilization.

After the visitor’s center, I stopped by the Taggart Lake trail and decided that would be a good short (4-ish miles) post-race hike. 

After the Phelps Lake overlook, the trail was much less crowded and I found myself alone a lot of the time.

The weather was looking a little dark, with lots of rain clouds in the distance, but luckily, the rain stayed far enough away from me that I was able to just finish the hike before it started. 

On my way to dinner, I passed by the road that went up to the top of Signal Mountain, so I did a quick backtrack and headed up to the top for a sunset / rain cloud view of the mountains. It was an amazing view!

Since I was almost to the part where I could make a loop out of my trip, I kept going and came across the Jackson Lake dam which was really neat.