We took a selfmade alternate from Jackson towards Pinedale through the Gros Verde Wildernis starting with the Cache Creek Trail and then going on the Highline Granite Trail. This turned out to be basically a 10 mile bush wack through dense vegetation on a tilted trail and made hiking not only slow but also painful with the potential to twist the ankle a lot.
We bashed through the trail though and took the Horse Creek Trail down the mountain to escape but this trail was even worse at times with virtually no existing trail. We hiked out off the Wildernis using the little granite creek trail which was only a little better and looking at the map when we exited the forest we found that the horse creek trail was not even marked on the map.
We made our way into Pinedale by hitchhiking, to avoid any more crazy bush wack and got lucky with a guy called Josh who turned around to pick us up part of the way but than exclaimed: “Well I will just drive you to Pinedale – it is just 40 miles anyways”. We were very glad for him to go out his way and found out that he visited Hamburg in ’95 while riding a hand cranked bicycle (he was in a wheelchair).
When we got into town we went to get some groceries, ate a burger at the local brewpub and headed to the hotel where we went right to sleep.
Tomorrow we will hitch out back to the CDT into the wind river range. Out next stop will likely be Lander, WY
