Turpin Meadows to North Fork Meadows

TReed loading up the trusty Rav4

Like I am prone to do, I woke up early---3:30 AM early. Unable to fall back to sleep after 15 minutes I gave up and found a few good books in the lounge and settled in for what would be almost 2 hours of personal edification and enjoyment in a most comfortable chair as the Dubois slept like normal folk.
 
Once the others started to make some noise I poked my head into our room and started to get ready myself. Knowing that we had a lengthy automobile shuttle to deal with Bob and I had our gear prepped quickly and went downstairs for what was a pretty good continental breakfast.
 
The plan was for Reed, Bob and I to leave around 8 AM for Turpin Meadows where I would drop them off and then go pick up Steve and Lee who would be parking their vehicles at the Bonneville Pass trailhead near Brooks Lake.  This was the one part of the logistics that concerned me a little bit as cell coverage would be sporadic at best if something were to happen to any of the vehicles en route.
 
The three of us got off without much trouble after Bob got his daily coffee fix.  The morning was clear and crisp as we started west.

Turpin Meadows trailhead

The Togwotee Pass road construction did not cause as much of a delay as I anticipated and soon we were headed down the pass with beautiful views of the Tetons directly ahead of us.  For a few moments I wished I had chosen “real” mountains to hike in but got over it.
 
A few minutes later the GPS signaled our turn to the Turpin Meadow Lodge was close at hand and soon we were travelling on a fairly smooth gravel road toward Turpin Meadows.
 
We found the trailhead without any difficulty and I was quickly heading back to Brooks Lake after dropping Reed and Bob off. The delay at the construction site was quite a bit longer than the trip out but I was still able to make it to Brooks Lake on schedule.
 
The NFS access road had been graded the day before and therefore was in much better shape so I was able to travel at about 22 mph for most of the trip in and quickly took the turn up to the Bonneville Pass trailhead.
 
After driving for about a mile up toward the trailhead I noticed the ground starting to get a little wetter.  I recalled Double Cabin’s advice to stay in the ruts should the road become a gooey mess of gumbo. The Trusty Rav4 did have 4WD so I was never worried about getting stuck.  Sliding off the road and down the 50’ embankment was a concern, however.

Steve, Bob, Dorf and Reed at our first rest.

I was almost to the trailhead, powering through a hundred yards mud and water, slipping and sliding in the ruts, when I saw Lee standing beside his Mazda sitting on the right side of the road, which at this particular section looked more like cow pasture than anything else but was wider. Lee was also stopped, though ahead of Steve’s vehicle and on dry road. My first thought was “oh shit…he’s stuck”.

I pulled up expecting the worst but was pleasantly surprised when Lee announced that he’d bottomed out a few times and wasn’t going to go any further unless I was prepared to pull him out of the mud.  Whew. No problem.
 
No big deal.  I trudged the 60 yards up to Lee and told him to go ahead and that I’d follow him to the trailhead.  In the meantime, Lee would attempt to turn his car around and meet us down at the road junction and follow me to a place where he could park for the week.  I was glad we had taken the time to scout out the area the day before as I planned to take Steve to the very place we had parked to check out the lake.
 
As it turned out, the trailhead was only about another ¼ mile over dry road meaning the muddy section of road was only about 150 yards.
 
Once I had Lee in my vehicle we started back to find Lee, which we did just beyond the muddy portion of the road but heading in the right direction.  The Rav4 started beeping at me, probably letting me know it had no traction as we slid through the mud, but still in the ruts.  The road here was slicker than snot and much worse than anything a Wisconsin winter could dish out but we made it through and were shortly at a small parking area near Brooks Lake Creek.  Once the gear was transferred we were on our way back to Turpin Meadows more or less still on schedule.
 

The expansive North Fork

We arrived at the trailhead just before 11:00 and were on the trail right at 11:00. 
 
The skies were still clear with a slight breeze as we began with a short climb up to a ridge on a pretty beat up trail.  We’d be spending today on a trail, heading to Bridger Lake and Yellowstone’s Thorofare region, which was used extensively by horse packers so I was expecting wide often braided trails for most of the day.
 
It quickly became apparent that Steve, Lee and Reed would be hiking quicker than Bob and I and we settled into the positions we’d stick to throughout most of the hike---with Bob and I bringing up the rear.   For the first hour, however, we all stayed fairly close together and stopped for three breaks during our first 4 hours on the trail.
 
Aside from the wide trail and a few pack trains (and a few cute wranglers) the hike was fairly enjoyable and easy up to this point but offered few views of the North Fork of the Buffalo River.  This would change once we reached about the 8 mile mark and descended down to the North Fork Meadows.

Dorf and Reed cross the North Fork looking for that elusive first nights camp

The meadows, about 2 miles in length was dissected by the North Fork with a burn from the 1988 fires west of the river, untouched forest to the east. Reed was nowhere to be found when but Lee and Steve were down near the river getting water when I arrived and ready to find a place to camp, Bob somewhere a few minutes behind myself---also ready to stop for the day. I had developed some hot spots on both heels after about 6 miles but wasn’t worried: I had plenty of moleskin and duct tape after all and that had always worked before.

Reed, as it turns out, was a bit further up the meadow probably wondering where the rest of us were.  We met up and decided that the best place to spend the night was at the already occupied outfitters camp so we went about finding another site.  This would prove to be more difficult than is should have been considering the topography.
 
The Buffalo at this point was predictably nothing more than a meandering stream through marsh which meant several crossings of smaller streamlets with mucky bottoms to get to the shelter of the trees to the west. Once on the other side Reed and I found nothing suitable so he went a bit further up the meadows along a faint trail in hopes of finding something.
 
By this time we were all pretty much ready to camp anywhere, no matter how bad…and Reed delivered in a big way.

Dorf and Reed cross the North Fork looking for that elusive first nights camp

A level, semi-grassy patch in the trees about 200’ from the river, Reed did manage to find a place where we all could pitch our tents and hang our excess food for the night.  Not the greatest, but at that point I didn’t really give a rip---even with a noisy outfitters camp full of kids about 400’ away.  The kids weren’t the worst part---the pack mules and horses with cowbells given free range grazing rights were.
 
Tingting…tingting…tingting...until well after midnight and within feet of our camp.
 
Still, we were able to enjoy dinner and a small fire to knock back a moderate mosquito population until well after dark.  My home-dehydrated pasta salad didn’t taste as good as last years version but was still quite good, even if  far too plentiful to eat comfortably.
 
We sat around the fire, watched and listened to the mules forage their way back south until they were almost out of earshot---only to have them work their way back toward our camp around 2 AM.
 
Tingting…tingting…tingting...