Boondocking in the Teton Forest, WY

Just outside the National Park is the National Forest. While it may sound the same, on paper the different between  a”Park” and a “Forest” is everything. Within the National Parks, the public is very limited in what we can do. The Government does this to protect the parks from the millions of visitors each year. A “Forest” is federal land specifically set aside for public uses. Quite literally, this is “my land” (and yours) to use as we please… within reason.

Teton National Forest butts up to the National Park. A 3/4 mile dirt road took us out of the Park and into the Forest boundary where we can camp, shoot, hike, bike, and four-wheel drive completely free. A tick further up the road put us up on a hilltop that overlooks the entire Teton park. We decided to stop here for a few days… not only for the views, but for the terrain around us.

We spent the morning taking hundreds of photos of the flora where we setup camp. In the afternoon we took a short hike up the dirt road to explore the other areas that people camp. Tonight we will fire up our BBQ as we wait the impending wondrous sunset!

After a good night’s sleep, thanks to the exhaustion for yesterday, we woke and got straight to a coffee and oatmeal breakfast. Some cleaning followed before my afternoon work which held me near the van for a few more hours. By early afternoon Conor took off for a solo hike while Tim and I unlocked the bikes for a short ride up the dirt road we hiked yesterday to tinker around with some fallen branches at another camp area. We ended up building a ‘shelter’ of sorts which was entertaining enough to keep Tim from complaining of boredom. Not to top the laws of Murphy, soon after returning the the van his laptop and iPod batteries were dead and the complaints began. This prompted me to get out and get some more photos of the nearby plant-life.

Over the past few days, we have kept ourselves as busy as possible with daily-life chores (cleaning, working, gathering, etc) enough to not go crazy. Timmy and I built a “fort” and Tee-Pee (is that how you spell that?) out of the misc large branches laying about. I have gone for a few short runs and hikes, and we did a little target shooting as well. Add that to our ‘chores’ and our days went fairly quickly. Our evenings, once the sun sets after 10pm, is normally a quick 30-40 minutes of videos on the laptop before going down for the night. The three of us fell into a good rhythm this week, and hopefully we can keep this going for the next 2 weeks we are still on the road.

Oh, one thing I am very excitied about; Timmy and I found this ideal branch to be used as a walking stick. Actually, two sticks once we cut it down to the proper lengths. So, we have spent time each day knifing away at these sticks adding our own custom flavor to each. I’ve been looking for a wad of wood like this for a year. I know I can by one from a store, but the idea of making my own from nature’s supply is much more attractive. Mission accomplished!

Teton Forest photo album