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| Photographer's Point |
The final day in the Winds. It was easy because of only downhill to the trailhead. We again stopped at the last (and twas first) viewpoint, Photographer's point. This time the scenery was a little different due to clouds. It was differently beautiful.
Then the rest was all downhill to the end. After saying goodbye to Chip, we soon arrived at the trailhead.
There were many cars in the parking lot. Whoa. Cars were from Washington to California on the West coast, from Montana to Arizona in the West, Quebec to Mass on the East coast. Cars were from all over the North America. I was surprised why so many people came here at the beginning, but after backpacking it was not surprising. People came to the Winds just because it is beautiful.
At the parking lot, we sorted out stuff so that we could quickly check in bags at the airport. We finished backpacking around 11 a.m. and the flight was 11:59 p.m. on the same day. The same day flight sounds aggressive, but we had 12 hours.
First we went to the nearest town, Pinedale. This is the town CDT hikers to hike out and resupply food.
Pinedale is a small town, however, surprisingly there are many restaurants and coffee shops, a couple of motels, and an outdoor store.
First we were craving for "real" food, not camping food. So we went to Wind River Brewing Company. We took outdoor seat which was very relaxing. Mr.N got beer and I had a sip. Half of the table were occupied and some groups were obviously after backpacking in the Winds. It was obvious because they wore hiking shoes and looked so happy with beer and food.
We both ate12 oz ribeye steak. 12 oz is 340 gram. Yes, it is big! Why not?
After we filled out tummies, we checked out the small and only outdoor store, Great Outdoor Shop (this is the name of store, it is actually great) in Pinedale. This is just next to Wind River Brewing Company. Mr.N had come to the Great Outdoor Shop to get a shuttle to a trailhead. This shop offers hikers shuttle service. Their way is quite old-school. If hikers make reservation for shuttle, the shop calls registered drivers living nearby. The shop asks if drivers can give a ride on the day until the shop finds one.
When Mr.N asked shuttle, he didn't have a reservation. So the owner started calling drivers one by one and luckily Mr.N got a ride.
Another interesting stuff I saw at the shop was a sticker saying "REI sucks, support small business".
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| badlands |
After enjoying the small town, we started driving to Salt Lake City. The driving was like in the Western movie.
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| Add caption |
Badlands were seen here and there. "Badlands" is a terrain like sandy rocks like the ones in the left picture. Nothing wrong with badlands, but I don't know why they are called badlands. I asked Mr.N this question, but he didn't know the answer. Does some of the readers know?
Badlands and vast prairie and road. That's it. This is the West. This kind of scenery is exactly the one Japanese people think about America.
The left picture is the road we drove to Salt Lake City (SLC). Somehow one cop car was parking along the road as you can see.
This view reminded me of the song "Magnificent Seven", so I tried to play music with my iPhone, but AT&T didn't have a good coverage in Wyoming. After a while the moment we got into Utah, AT&T provided LTE (Apparently AT&T covers UT well but not WY). So I played Magnificent Seven.
In SLC, we went to In-N-Out Burger. I was excited about seeing it when we had arrived in SLC a week ago as I wrote here. We took out the food and went to the last stop, Great Salt Lake. Because we were in Salt Lake City, why not stop at the Great Salt Lake?
We went to the visitor center and I learned how salty the Great Salt Lake is. The most salty one I had known was Mono Lake in the Eastern Sierra.
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| Sunset at Great Salt Lake |
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