Yes. There was another incident.
Before we get to that however, we made a number of promises over the last few days about early morning sunrise pics. We are happy to report that after yesterday’s hike wore us out, we hit the sack early and were able to get up at 4:45 am and head out to Schwabacher Landing for an absolutely beautiful sunrise. It was not quite 40° out, but Ann put a winter coat over her jammies and off we went. We arrived at the spot about ten minutes before sunrise and we were not surprised to see a few hundred of our fellow travelers already in position, waiting for the sun to light up the face of the mountains. What was really neat was how quiet and hushed everyone was. This opportunity to see and photograph a gorgeous sunrise being reflected off majestic mountains above a serene stream was definitely being treated with respect and reverence.
Definitely worth getting up early!
We returned to the Airstream for breakfast and Ann got a bit more rest while Ben caught up on a little bit of board work. At the crack of 10:30 am, we set out for a slightly less ambitious hike, this time, we targeted the Taggart Lake Trail! Trail maps indicated it was a short 3 mile hike with about 400 feet of elevation change. After our big hike the day prior, that seemed about perfect!
We set out with our walking sticks, our camelbaks loaded with water and protein bars, and we were quickly immersed in nature, once again without many people around. We felt like we had the trail to ourselves, once we ditched all the non-hiking tourists at the visitors center. But before we ditched those tourists, we made sure to make fools of ourselves, or at least one of us did. LOL
So, the map below shows the trail we planned to take.
Oh, forgot to show you where we started. See the artfully created red dot on the map below…we left the trailhead and went north, which would ultimately take us on a counter clockwise path, touching Taggert Lake at the Northwest corner of the route. Now supposedly (we say supposedly because so far we haven’t seen an active bear nor a moose in any form except a statue), this hike territory is supposed to be littered with scary animals. The signs all warn us of death or worse (pooping our pants) if we encounter one of these scary critters.
Since you read the title of this post, and you have picked up on the fact that one of us has some occasional tummy issues, you would be correct in assuming that there was yet another incident. And let’s just face facts, one of us will always have a lousy broken pancreas, therefore there will ALWAYS be incidents. Also, one of us is horrified about these issues and one of us laughs hysterically and loves going into detail about the other’s GI challenges. SIGH!
If you’re familiar with the maps that “Mr. TaterTot” has been posting, to mark these incidents, you’ll be able to discern roughly where the incident took place. Yeah, that’s only 1/2 mile in to the hike. Newsflash…Ann has always been a panic pooper, meaning as soon as she’s leaving civilization, her bowels panic and decide that they must empty, one last time. Happens on airplanes and boats too. Okay, it happens in any situation where we’re told we can’t use the bathroom or when there are none. But because we’re a pretty awesome couple and team, we’re both becoming experts in finding suitable spots, enough off the trail and free from dangerous fauna that might be curious or from flora that might be tickley. The National Park Services really should be handing out awards to those that can pull off these incidents flawlessly and with care and concern for nature. If anyone from the NPS is seeing this post, we’d be happy to help with a fitting acronym for the award. We”ll be working diligently on this until we hear from you.
Shew, that was a big tangent. Anyway, we found suitable location was quickly found that met the criteria, although minimally at best, but in a time of crisis, beggars cannot be choosers. In keeping with long established tradition, one of us kept watch, while the other took care of business.
For those of you old enough to remember K-Mart, and specifically the Blue Light Special, you’ll recall that no matter where you were in the store, if that blue light special cart got wheeled to a location in the store and the blue light started slowly spinning, you hustled over to see what the deal was. It drew people in from wherever they happened to be, like moths to the flame, for a chance at 20% off of ladies bloomers, or 30% off toothpaste, or 25% off boy’s Schwinn bikes.
Stay with us for a bit longer. The K-Mart bit is only a half tangent. The connection is that we’re starting to suspect that naughty forest floor poopers activate some kind of beacon or alarm, similar to the “Blue Light Special.” Whatever they’re activating, it’s very effective at attracting hikers. No sooner did Ann, I mean, no sooner did the unnamed pooper get committed to the business at hand, it seemed like the signal went out to every family, group, and wandering solo hiker that happened to be in the area. They appeared out of nowhere, meandering up and down the trail to converge at roughly our location. Talking, hollering at their kids who had run ahead, “Hey! Get back here Tommy! Sally! Let’s set out the blanket and eat lunch here!”
Horrified, we froze, like the prey in the face of the apex predator. We dared not move from our respective guard position and guarded position, lest attention be directed toward us. One family just wouldn’t leave the path in front of our spot. UGH! We finally had to casually wander back toward the trail, not 30 feet away, and become more and more animated as we got closer to the trail, talking about “We thought we saw a rare bitter-toothed, black billed duckmungeon, but alas, it was just a stick. Dang. Oh well, y’all have a nice picnic!” And we headed on our way to less pooped up parts of the trail.
Once the urgent business was out of the way, the balance of the hike was just absolutely beautiful. We went through an area that had burned several years before, and the hush that settled over the trail was both calming and a bit unnerving. No birds, squirrels, or other small animals had ventured back in to the leafless and mostly branchless, densely packed trees.
Now after seeing the pics, don’t you think that if all these crazy scary animals existed here, shouldn’t they be in this setting? But there wasn’t a scary animal that we saw and honestly the only other wildlife we saw were the horseflies swarming around us. After two hours, and four miles, we “pooped” out of the wilderness, and headed back toward the campground to take care of laundry and to get a nap. It was a long day with a very early start.
Tomorrow morning, we pack up and head out towards Yellowstone!
TaterTotTales 