Wyoming Hiking Trails

This site is designed to provide organized access to informative Wyoming hiking trail and backpacking websites. Hiking enthusiasts like you have created excellent web pages on Wyoming -- then posted those hikes online -- only to be ignored by search engines. The purpose of this site is to provide a way to find these personal hiking pages, and make your research easier.

• Big Horn Mountains Introductory page with photos & links, from bighornmountains.com



• Bridger-Teton National Forest Pinedale Ranger District. Excellent page with multiple trail descriptions & photos.



• Curt Gowdy Trail Trail narrative & introduction to volksmarching.



• General Site Maps & trail info for Devil's Tower, Yellowstone, Fossil Butte, Grand Teton & more. Site by trailmonkey.com



• Grand Teton National Park Here's the "Activities Page" on the National Park Service site. If you sniff around, you might -- might -- find the hiking information. (Give up? Try clicking on "publications." Isn't that intuitive?) It appears that the Grand Teton NPS site has been reworked...I've seen a few of these now...they look better than the old brown and tan NPS format, but the link structure and verbiage seems to have gotten even more obscure, if that's possible.



• Grand Teton National Park alright, we shouldn't send you on a wild goose chase like the link above. Here's a very well done .pdf file on day hikes in Grand Teton. Kudos to the park service!



• Green River Lakes in Bridger-Teton National Forest. Campground & Trailhead In the Wind River Mountains near Pinedale, Wyoming. Excellent camping & trailhead info.



• New Forks Lake in Bridger-Teton National Forest. Campground & Trailhead In the Wind River Mountains near Pinedale, Wyoming. Excellent camping & trailhead info.



• Yellowstone National Park "Favorite Trails" nice descriptions and some photos of numerous trails throughout the park. Site by David Rothenburger.



• Yellowstone National Park National Park Service hiking page; mostly day hiking info on this page. If you click around you can sort of piece things together. The link above is better.

Strong Cowboys & Weak Coffee...

Mention Wyoming and most people think of wide open rangeland, rowdy oil roughnecks, grizzled cowboys, campfires and bunkhouses. And the coffee is -- surprise -- just about the weakest you'll find anywhere. Visit the sights of Wyoming and you'll spend a lot of time on the road, and consequently, you'll make a fair number of stops at gas stations, cafes, convenience stores, etc.

Late one night at a cafe in Lovell I saw a waitress line up a dozen coffee filters, and proceed to put one (!) rounded spoonful of coffee grounds in each.

"Pardon me, ma'am, what, uh, what are you doing?"

"I'm just gettin' the coffee ready for tomorrow morning, is all."

"When do you put the rest of it in?

She looked at me like I was from Mars. I assumed this was a quirk local to Lovell, but learned the error of my ways in Cheyenne. Stopping at a convenience store, I saw a woman in a Cadillac with New York plates wheel up, both of us headed for a nearly empty coffee pot. She hurriedly grabbed a cup and siezed the pot. After filling the cup with an unusually clear liquid, commented that she could see the bottom.

"Something's wrong with the coffee!" (said with alarm, to the cashier)

"Oh, I'm sorry, that's been sitting there for a while, it's probably really, really strong. (This drew a very puzzled look from the New Yorker) I'll make a new pot." Whereupon I noticed a row of jumbo sized filters, each with about a tablespoon of grounds, queued up by the coffee machine.

"I'll gladly take that cup if you don't want it..."

Wyomingites may be clueless about their coffee, but they sure have a couple of stomping national Parks. In fact, pretty much the whole state is an outdoorsman's paradise...but we'll stick to the hiking. The book that I think is the one most people should be armed with is Outdoor Family Guide to Yellowstone and Grand Teton by Lisa Gollin Evans. This isn't limited to hiking, in fact, it's extremely well-rounded and an indispensible guide for any first-time, second, third-time or even a regular visitor. Plus it covers more hikes than you'll have time for...with details and all the data you'll need. You know, I keep a few copies of this book on hand. Every time somebody shows me their copy of How to Do Disney in a Week or Less or Insider's Top-Secret Guide to the Magic Kingdom, I pull one of these out and clobber them with it. "Here's a REAL vacation, you moron!" (I only do that for people I care about.) Can you imagine that some people choose a bunch of puppets, long lines, and five dollar popsicles ahead of Yellowstone?!

Gollin-Evans' book emphasizes Yellowstone, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for the serious hiker headed for Grand Teton. There I prefer Bill Schneider's Hiking Grand Teton National Park from the Falcon Guide series. Something for everyone except for the advanced, multi-day-expedition-type hiker or climber. (I'm in the process of reviewing a book on that subject).

One last anecdote, if you'll kindly indulge me. I stopped at a Pizza Hut in Cody, back in '92. It was in the midst of a month-long travel odyssey (when I was publisher of The Traveler's Edge) and I left the trunk of my car open when I went inside. About 20 minutes later I noticed this, and charged outside to close it. As I was doing so, a cowboy entering the restaurant watched my movements, looked down at my New Jersey license plate, and smiled broadly.

"Son, you don't need to worry about that...you're in Cody Wy-O-ming."

I wonder if we ought to emulate their coffee preferences.

-- Rick Bolger

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PS: Have a dinner invitation? Instead of bringing a bottle of humdrum wine or some meaningless flowers, consider bringing a copy of Like a Brother by Gerry Beckley, Robert Lamm, and Carl Wilson. If those names sound familiar, they should. Beckley is a key member of the group America, and you know his voice from Sister Golden Hair. Robert Lamm is still the driving force behind the group Chicago, perhaps his signature song is Saturday in the Park. The late Carl Wilson was the angelic-voiced youngest brother of the Wilson clan, also known as The Beach Boys. His was the ethereal lead on God Only Knows. This album was recorded just prior to Wilson's passing, finished by Beckley and Lamm, and released after a battle with the label. Few have heard it, but those who do are generally at a loss for words to describe the incredible beauty captured on this disc. It is arguably a cut above anything else released in the past decade. If you click on the link (to Amazon) you can listen to samples of a few of the selections.