The Gros Ventre You Say

On 8/5 I Did 15.7 miles to Cable Creek Trail. On 8/6 I did 25.8 miles to Granite Creek Trailhead. On 8/7 I did 28.2 to Kinky Creek Trail. On 8/8 I did 16.4 miles to Green River and Hitched to Pinedale.

Listen to “Green River” by CCR. I doubt this is the Green River they were singing about but its still a great song to hike to as I approached the Green River.


I woke up in a cloud at the Phillip's trail head with all my gear soaked, this wasn't ideal but happens from time to time when moisture gets trapped in a valley that I decided to camp in. I packed up all my wet gear via headlamp and was walking by 430a. I had an 11 mile road walk to get into Jackson, WY and wanted to get out that evening with all my chores done because I literally could not afford to stay in town. I actually dont mind road walks into town anymore because it gives me a chance to call friends and family while I'm walking and I don't have to ration my battery usage since I'll soon have access to outlets in town.

Jackson was a weird town. The locals were super cool and gave me great advice of where I could hang out and get my chores done away from the tourists. All of the tourists looked like a copy and paste experiment that went wrong; They all had Patagonia hats on, unflattering khaki shorts a tight fitting polo and all looked fatigued from carrying all of their recently bought knickknacks from the local western store. I'm giving Jackson a hard time, but I get why people come here. There is a bike trail that takes you from downtown Jackson to Jenny Lake in the Tetons. If I lived in Jackson I could ride my bike as part of my alpine start of the mountains. That's pretty cool and I would probably have a hard time keeping a job in town since there is so much climbing, hiking and fishing within riding distance.

I left town Jackson via a mountain bike trail as I headed towards the Gros Ventre Wilderness (Its pronounced Grow Vant). My detour off the CDT can basically be broken into 3 sections: Yellowstone NP, Teton Crest Trail and the Gros Ventre Wilderness. I had no idea what to expect in the Gros Ventres but was so suprised with how gorgeous they were. The Gros Ventres are known for having the most landslides anywhere in the United States which gives way to so many cool rock formations that are constantly changing. The hiking through the wilderness was chill I went over 3 big passes and then spent the rest of the time following small rivers as they snaked through the valley. It was a very enjoyable section and I only had to bushwack and go cross country a handful of times which isn't bad when you are making up the trail as you go.

I hardly saw anyone in the Wilderness, the first person I saw was a backcountry ranger. I spoke with her for a long time about everyone's favorite subject: Bears. I told her I hadn't seen much bear sign in the Gros Ventres and she just laughed. She told me that I need to look for more than just paw prints and scat and that the Gros Ventres are actually at carrying capacity with Grizzlies. We talked for awhile about different tell tale signs of bear activity and once I knew what I was looking for I could see signs everywhere. For instance I was looking for claw marks on trees, I was looking at eye level for the marks, but a standing grizzly can reach 8 to 10 feet, so once I looked higher on the trees I saw a bunch of claw marks everywhere I looked.

I ran into a few cool animals in the Gros Ventres. The first new encounter was with a badger. I couldn't figure out what it was at first since I had never seen a badger in the wild but once I realized what it was I gave it plenty of room because badgers can be pretty aggressive if they feel threatened. The second wildlife encounter was with a golden elk. I came across it when I was bushwacking and it was in a dense forest. It was the biggest elk in had ever seen with a huge rack and was golden in color. It looked almost mythical and I was hoping it was going to give me some sage advice but instead it just ran off.


While the bushwacking in the Wilderness was low I was completely off trail once I left the Wilderness and was crosscountry hiking. It required a lot of navigation and "let's see what happens" route decision. I did a pretty decent job of making my way towards the green river campground where I planned on doing a hitch to Pinedale. The hitch to pinedale is a 50 mile hitch on a road that is not very busy. As I was making my way to the trail head I was actually going to be parallel to the road I needed to hitch out on for 8 miles but the Green River was in between myself and the road. It seemed silly to be so close to the road and miss the few potential hitches along the way. I decided to swim the Green River. So with my pack above my head (luckily it was light because I was out of food) I swam across the river. I popped out the other side and climbed the embankment right as a horse trailer was going by; I stuck out my thumb and they pulled right over. I was still sopping wet as I jumped in the back of the truck and made my way to Pinedale.

Granite Creen

Granite Creen

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Flowers after a fire

Flowers after a fire

Shoal Falls

Shoal Falls

Going down to the Gros Ventre River

Going down to the Gros Ventre River

Gros Ventre from a far

Gros Ventre from a far

Claw marks high in the tree

Claw marks high in the tree