19 MAR 2000
By Peter Hollis
Win and Joe's ski traverse of Greater Yellowstone sounds pretty amazing. John Garson (the brains of our operation) and I - then denizens of Laramie- did our traverse in the winter of 1976: South Pass to Cody, Wyoming over 33 days starting in early February and covering about 330 miles.
Bob and Alice Stevenson put us up in Farson and sent us off with full stomachs. We skied up the Sweetwater River, over to and up the Little Sandy River, over Temple Pass then to Big Sandy. From there we headed north to Island Lake (where we had pre-placed a cache). We had started the trip 110 miles away with 11 days of food; but because of heavy snowfall and deep breaking we reached the cache in 13 days, with an irreparably broken stove, single 3-pin boots falling apart, and hungry stomachs, despite our honed cabin burglary skills. We beat a brief retreat to Elkheart Park and Jackson for repairs and to gorge (trying not to break our trip budget of $2.00 per person per day) and whipped ourselves back into solitary confinement, together.
Our second leg was over Indian Pass to the Knifepoint Glacier, then over Elsie Col to the Dinwoody Glacier, then across Goat Flat to Dubois. This second leg was awe-inspiring. We climbed Fremont, Helen and Gannett. Before we started across the Knifepoint and Fremont glaciers - all easily at a dangerous angle of repose, heavily loaded with snow but with no recent sign of avalanche - John provided me with a discourse on snow physics, at the end of which he added, "I think that's right - or maybe I have it backwards." We tethered ourselves to our avalanche cords like donning voodoo amulets and comforted ourselves with assurances that up to that time in history no one had yet to be buried and killed while wearing an avalanche cord.
We traveled very light (1.5 pounds of food per person per day) and I'm sure that at any point we could have eaten all our remaining food in one great binge.
With sparks flying off our lignostone edges over Goat Flat at night, we made it to Dubois before the bar closed. A friendly sheriff offered us a warm night in the jail, but we opted for the patch of grass under the eve of the Unitarian Church. We picked up our second cache at a lumber mill outside Dubois and hitched to Togwotee Pass. From there we headed over Two Ocean Pass to the Yellowstone River where two friends of ours were trapping and living in a teepee in the Teton Wilderness Area. They were incredibly happy to see us. After about 4 months of isolation, Jim wouldn't let me throw away a Lipton soup packet without reading it cover to cover.
We then headed north through dense lodgepole forests (a result of National Park Service fire suppression policy) to Yellowstone Lake and the East Entrance road. There we encountered our first tracks of the entire trip: snowmobilers - the first "people" we had seen in the backcountry. One stopped when he saw us on the lake. He started walking across the ice, near the buffalo grazing on green grass around steaming fumeroles, when in a great SPLASH he disappeared from sight. He re-emerged, scrambled back to his machine and out 24 miles to Pahaska Teepee to warm up.
We followed the snowmobiler the next day. Our friend Bob Frisbie and his wife in Cody greeted us with open arms and a mountain of venison steaks. This was truly a great experience. Very close to the edge: I felt that we had left civilization and were at the end of a very long and fragile thread.
Well, I hope your friends are having a great adventure!
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