Pinedale scouting and paddling

Next stop in our tour of the Wind River Mountains was Pinedale (with a spot in an RV park in Boulder).  Pinedale is a small town but had at least one of everything we needed or could have needed.  Including a seamstress to fix a zipper on my backpack, a small but well-stocked gear store, and an excellent brewpub.  An occasional moose sighting.  And good access to the other main trailhead up to Gannett Peak.  It rained most every afternoon and there was sometimes a lot of wind.  Good things to be aware of for the race.

Getting into all the gear prep for Cowboy Tough - testing a smaller bladder that might fit in the new PFD I have coming, and testing an inline filter.  The bladder worked fine but didn't fit in the PFD so I had to swap it out, and the inline filter for the bladder in my main pack worked really well (I used it the whole race):

Driving up into the mountains for another backpacking training foray, this time just for the day.  I was hoping they would use the lakes above Pinedale for packrafting during the race, but they didn't:

Hiking up Pole Creek Trail into the woods:

I love the wildflowers and views of the snow-capped mountains:

Definitely looking forward to coming back to the lakes and rocks and scenery of the Winds:

Photographers Point and a bit of mosquito protection to make my head look funny:

The photo's better without my head in it anyway - amazing mountains!

I think finding snow in July offends John:

Making a small loop to see some different trails:

John found an opportunity for trail work - good practice for his big trip to Montana to work on the Continental Divide Trail:

Nice job!  All hikers thank you:

More lovely wildflowers:

More trail work:

I went looking for photo opportunities and found this cute little dragonfly:

John found another log across the trail and decided he needed some leverage...

Uh, no.

2 out of 3 obstacles cleared = not too shabby.

He also found this on the trail - a braid of horsehair?

Another fine lake, this one with lilypads:

Mosquito net selfie:

I love these little trails that wind all through the mountains:

Back at the trailhead after another excellent training day of hiking with packs:

Checking out Wind River Brewing Company - you know, for race research:

I took a photo of the menu just in case it might come in handy later.  I actually carried a printout of it during the race because the food was so good that I was hoping we'd come back...

Anyway, back to the real training.  Time for a bit of paddling on Fremont Lake.  I decided to try paddling solo in our Sevylor so John could have the day to finish gluing the bike box together.

Well now, this is the life.

Solo in the Sevylor worked great.  Paddling north to get more views of the spectacular mountains:

Coming back from the lake, I finally managed to stop and take a picture of this scene we'd been admiring as we drove by:

Scouting the rest of the businesses in Pinedale - maybe we'd end up here in honor of our teammate Dave:

It's a real bike box now!  John had accomplished a lot while I was gone:

When you live in a small space, sometimes things get piled up to give you more room to work... this is perhaps the most "piled up" I have seen it:

Another excellent week of race prep and scouting.