A Day of Blood, Sweat, and Tears

All our lives, we have heard the phrase "blood, sweat, and tears." It means giving your all and trying your best to accomplish something. We're not sure if we can say that we tried our best today, but we did experience a little tears, sweat and blood.

For the last three blogs, we've been raving about this wonderful campground we've found in the Snowy Mountain Range of Wyoming. We've talked about the pristine lakes that we can walk to . . .

and the myriad of great hikes that literally start right at our doorstep. Why wouldn't we just stay here forever?

There are actually two reasons we must leave. One is that we have no cell phone service. Even with the cell booster, the only way to even send out a text is to climb to the top of the motor home--and that doesn't always work.

The other problem is that we have no electrical hook-ups, and our residential refrigerator is an electric hog. Even running the generator for an hour two times each day, it runs down our house batteries quickly. By the third day, our old batteries are needing some shore power. 

So Denisa will shed a little tear that after only three nights, it looks like it is time to leave Sugarloaf Campground. But before we leave, we have one more hike.

As we're starting on our hike to the Gap Lakes, we see more skiers starting their hike to Medicine Bow Peak. This is the second time we have seen hikers with ski gear so they can ski down the back side of the mountain after they hike to the top.

The yellow alpine lilies are still in bloom. This is such a special place!

This morning's hike is to the Gap Lakes, and it only took a 1-mile hike to get to the leading edge of South Gap Lake.

We have wandered into another of God's wonders!

Our hike took us the entire length of South Gap, and then the trail disappears into that pile of boulders. We must pick our way through those boulders to continue on to . . .

North Gap Lake on the other side of the rocky ridge.

We sat and enjoyed the lake and the blue skies, contemplating if we would go further. This trail continues with a chain of links sprinkled over this mountain valley.

But to go any further means picking our way across a giant boulder field. You can barely see the two people working their way across those boulders on the bottom left hand side of the picture below.

After watching them struggle with the rocks, Denisa decided that North Gap Lake was a good destination, and we headed back towards the motor home.

Since this was now going to be a pretty short hike, we had time to play in the snow on the way back.

We had noticed this big patch of snow with an interesting blue crack, and Mark wanted to check it out.

He hiked onto the highest section of the snowbank, and the snow is still surprisingly hard even in July.

From there he could peer down into the crevice to see that bright blue color that is always fun to find.

He even talked Denisa into climbing aboard for some interesting views as well.

This was another great hike that we could start right from our doorstep. We will shed a few TEARS that we must leave such a beautiful cool place in the middle of the summer heat! When we were ready to pull out of our favorite RV camping site, we had people waiting to pull in. This is a popular place!

From our campground at 10,500 feet in elevation, we drove down and down and down. We stopped at another first-come-first-served campground at Saratoga Lake, just 40 miles down the highway. But at an elevation of 6,792 feet, it's hot down here. There certainly isn't a line of people waiting for a camp site. But we are thankful to have a good phone signal and 50-amp electrical service (that will make our refrigerator and batteries happy).

Saratoga, Wyoming is most famous for its Hobo Mineral Hot Springs, so we headed there in the evening. We thought some warm water therapy might be good for the muscles we have been using to hike and kayak the last few days. We started at the medium-hot-springs.

Then we tried the hotter spring pool, and this one made us SWEAT! We found that the further we could get from the inlet of the hot spring water, the less hot it was. While we've seen hot springs that charge as much as $25 per person to swim in the warm water, this place is totally free!

Where the hot water comes directly from the springs is a rock tub that the locals named, "the lobster pot." Denisa tried to get in just to try it, but all her survival instincts kicked in and she only touched it with her toes. It was so hot it made  you sweat just sitting beside it.

Just below the pools, the North Platte River runs through town. It was a lovely natural place to enjoy the water this evening.

The hot water from the springs also filters into the river, and people have made natural rock barriers that trap different amounts of the hot water. There is an infinite number of hot spring temperature options within the rock circles that line the river.

After showers at the Hobo Hot Springs bath house, we drove through the quaint town of Saratoga, Wyoming. You know it is a little town, when a doe and her fawn feel comfortable walking down the street too.

As we headed back to our camp site at the lake, we noticed that it might be a nice sunset. The wind was calm and Denisa walked down to the water to get a picture of the sun setting over the water. That's when she found out how bad the mosquitoes were at Saratoga Lake. She was swarmed, and made a generous BLOOD donation to get this picture.

So this ends another varied day in the life of two wanderers. It's a bit of a stretch, but we had tears (from leaving our best campground ever), sweat (from the hot springs) and blood (from the swarms of mosquitoes). We gave it our all and tried our best to accomplish another good day of wandering His wonders.

Mirror and Marie Lakes - Will this be our favorite kayak of the year?

We are loving our time at Sugarloaf Campground in the Snowy Mountain Range of the Medicine Bow National Forestn Wyoming! After what might be our favorite hike yesterday, today we are going kayaking. We thought about kayaking at Libby or Lewis Lakes just below our campground, but we drove a couple miles to check out Mirror Lake. The water was so smooth that the mountains were mirrored in Mirror Lake this morning.

We could park right beside the lake and we were on the water in about 10 minutes. We really like our Sea Eagle inflatable kayak!

We took a lap around the lake,

and then we discovered that there was a little island in the middle. It's hard to tell, but Denisa is standing on that little island.

That allows us to take pictures of the Mark in the kayak with the tall mountain back drop. Nice!

Denisa's glad to say that Mark has always circled back to pick her up. 

Mirror Lake was a great little mountain lake for kayaking, but we had also noticed that Marie Lake certainly looked nice.

It's less than a mile away, so we strapped our inflated Sea Eagle onto the pickup, and got to kayak on a second lake today.

It would be hard for us to pick which lake we enjoyed the most.

When we first got on the water, we noticed a group gathering on the side closest to the road.

We have managed to crash a wedding, right here on the shore of Marie Lake!

These mountains and the blue skies will make a beautiful background for those wedding pictures. We tried real hard not to photo bomb the ceremony photos. As we kayaked right beneath those grand mountains, we realized it was impossible to capture their immense size without anything in front of them for scale.

So once again, Mark dropped Denisa off on a rock beside the water, and he rowed the kayak in front of the mountain. From her perch on the rock, Denisa zoomed in on Mark and our 12-foot kayak in front of that great big snow bank.

That's a big boulder at the bottom of the snow bank, right?

Then she zoomed out and took a picture of the entire mountain face. Mark and the kayak are in the picture, but they are too tiny to even see, and that huge snow bank that was in the picture doesn't look so big compared to the big mountain.

Denisa's glad to report that once again, Mark rowed back to pick her up.

It's been another great day in the Snowy Mountain Range here in southern Wyoming. With a chance to be on two lovely alpine lakes within a mile of our campground on the same day, we're thinking that this might just be our favorite kayak trip of the year!

Medicine Bow Peak--Will it be our favorite hike this year?

Yesterday we raved about how much we love our camp site here at Sugarloaf Campground in Wyoming. Of all the great attributes we listed in the last blog, we have one more for today. We can start on several different hikes that get great reviews right from our motor home. For example, today we are hiking to the top of Medicine Bow Peak. When we woke up and saw that clouds were settling on the top of the peaks, we waited to start our hike.

In the summer, we are usually up early to hike before it gets too hot. But on a day in July when we start the hike in the snow, we didn't need to worry about the heat.

We're right beside Lewis Lake, heading up into the mountains.

We love hikes like this that start out over 10,000 feet in elevation. That's because much of the climb is already done for us. So the first part of the hike was rather level as we walked through the saddle between two mountains.

But then we got to the foot of Medicine Bow Peak, and the climbing began!

As the trail got rocky, Denisa commented that this felt like a place a marmot would live. That was the cue for our wildlife picture of the day, as we followed the whistle and found this marmot scampering through the wildflowers.

Besides marmots, we also ran into more snow to hike through.

Now we are at a height where the lakes below us are beginning to look like they are on a map. We can recognize Libby Lake and Lewis Lake behind Mark, and the South Gap Lake in front of him.

The Forest Service web site says there are 102 alpine lakes in this area, and we're beginning to see more and more patches of blue lakes as we climb higher.

We took way too many pictures but we have two excuses. 1) This is one of the prettiest hikes we've been on this year, and 

2) we need an excuse to stop and rest. We're well over 11,000 feet in elevation now. The combination of thin air and steep inclines means that we stopped and enjoyed the scenery a lot!

As we zig-zagged across the face of Medicine Bow Peak, we could now see down into another mountain valley. That's Lookout Lake down below us, with Mirror and Marie Lakes further away.

The last ascent to the summit is a rock scramble, something that Denisa struggles with.

Mark figured out that hiking higher up the slope on the snow was easier than boulder hopping.

Either way, we both finally made it to the top for the summit picture.

From here, Mark bounds around on top of refrigerator-sized boulders so he can see the views off the other side of Medicine Bow Peak.

That's while Denisa sits quietly enjoying the views, and breathing in the air at 12,014 feet. This is the highest peak in western Wyoming, and it feels like we can see forever.

From this height, we are looking way down on Sugarloaf Mountain. It looks small from here, but it looks so much bigger from our camp site.

Speaking of our campground, if we zoom in, we can see it from here as well. It's the circular road in the center of the picture below (about 1,500 feet below).

After basking in the beautiful views among the boulders at top, it was time to head back down Medicine Bow Peak.

After toting her ice cleats all the way to the top of the mountain, Denisa insists on using them to help get down through this gentle slope of snow.

Mark thinks that is a little crazy, but if it gives Denisa more confidence on the snow he won't make fun of her (too much). Now it's time to start the long downhill slog down that very rocky path.

But wait, what if we walk off the trail to the steep snow pack area on the side of the peak. Won't that be a faster and easier descent?

Yes, it will be faster because we literally couldn't stop until we got to a less steep section at the bottom of the snow. We slipped and slid and skied down that black-diamond slope. Mark is smiling now because we are almost finished, but it wasn't pretty.

When we got back on the trail, we took a picture up to the snow patch we had just slid down. We could see that our tracks were the only ones down that route.

Back on the trail, we met a couple that had watched us coming down the snow. They were a little surprised to see people with white hair. They were expecting a couple of crazy kids taking that route. We talked for a few minutes, and they invited us to their church the next time we were in northeast Wyoming. We meet the nicest people in our wanderings! We also met this guy hiking up to the summit. He is wearing his skis and boots on his back all the way to the top, because he's planning to ski down.

We've burned a lot of calories so far, and it's definitely time for lunch. So we are taking a spur trail to find a nice picnic spot by the water.

There's so many lakes that they aren't all named. But they all have beautiful mountains around them.

This spur trail goes on for miles, but our legs have determined that we will only go another mile or so.

This is our last destination of the day--Overlook Lake. It's that long thin lake lying under the steep fin of mountains that we admired from the top of Medicine Bow Peak.

Hiking to the peak was nice, but there were almost no flowers among all those rocks and snow at the top. Down here, the valley is full of wildflowers like these paintbrushes.

Last summer, we discovered this different pink flower that only grows at high elevation in moist areas.

They have a scientific name, but Denisa prefers to call them "the pink elephant flower." They have rows of bright pink elephant-nose-like blooms, complete with floppy elephant ears. Who wouldn't love to find these flowers?!?

On the way home we stopped in at another lake, that still has a wall of snow over its shore.

Any one of these alpine lakes would be a great destination for a normal hike. But today, this is just another stop on a beautiful hike. We have definitely wandered into lots of God's wonders today!

With all the snow, this trail hasn't been open very long this summer. It definitely hasn't been maintained, and the shrubbery is tall and the trail is narrow in places.

That's about the time we glanced back at the snowy mountains, and caught a glimpse of the young man that we met earlier carrying his ski gear to the top. We stopped to talk to him, and he had a big smile on his face. He had a successful ski run down the mountain, and he counted his day as a success.

We count our day as a success as well! We hiked 6.6 miles with 1600 feet in elevation gain by the time we got back to the first patch of snow where we started near Lewis Lake. Medicine Bow Peak might  be our favorite hike this year!