Rainy Backpacking in Wyoming
We recently traveled to a destination in Wyoming that had been on our list for a long time. We drove the 8+ hours into the depths of Wyoming and started the trek into the deeper parts of this mountain range. About halfway into the first day, the thunder rolled in and the skies let loose. We thought it may pass quickly, like many afternoon thundershowers in the mountains do, but this one persisted. We found temporary relief sitting under a rock along the trail, but we soon realized that the storm wasn’t going away. Since we were up along a ridge, we waited out the thunder and lightning, but as soon as that passed, we continued our hike in the light rain.
We were lucky enough to set up our tent during a quick break in the rain, but all of our gear was still wet from the hike in. We set up our camp over 250 yards from the water as required, and enjoyed some tasty pine nut angel hair pasta and hot tea - which was much needed in the cold, dreary weather!
Our luck ended there, as our new MSR tent leaked during the night. Turns out, they changed the design for this year and at least from our accord, it is not as “bombproof” as the previous designs. We woke up to rain lightly dripping in the tent and damp sleeping bags. With the temperature outside at ~40 degrees, it was a cold start to the morning! We made the most of it and brought our cooking gear down to the water with us to *optimistically* enjoy sunrise at the lake. There wasn’t much of a sunrise to see, but we did warm up with some oatmeal and coffee!
By this point, our trip was not going according to plan. We expected to spend 3 nights in this basin, exploring up to the nearby passes, but after returning to a wet tent and wet gear with more rain in the forecast (a fantastic, unexpected feature of our Garmin InReach Mini) - we decided to hike out. After driving 8+ hours towards this destination, we weren’t ready to cut the weekend short, but we certainly needed to get warm, dry, and get away from the rain! We decided to drive to Jackson Hole and the Tetons because neither of us had ever been before.
After a quick brewery stop for beer, cheese fries, and other warm food - we were feeling much more optimistic about our new plan. We camped near Jackson Hole and spent the next morning at a beautiful viewpoint for sunrise. We weren’t the only ones with the good idea to spend sunrise at this spot - we even saw some moose!
We grabbed breakfast at a fantastic little diner in Jackson Hole called The Bunnery Cafe and Restaurant and felt confident that we made the right decision. We spent the day exploring around Jenny Lake and some other iconic parts of the park. A few local beers with our feet in the lake felt like a great way to cap off the day. We realized after this first visit that there’s so much more to see in the deeper part of the Tetons and we’re looking forward to coming back to backpack sometime in the future.