Dubois,WY to Rawlins, WY

Our first day out of Dubois and we caught up to Columbus, another SOBO I know from the AT. We all camped together that night and the next morning Safety Officer and I pushed on and were hoping to see Columbus in Pinedale in a couple days. We ran into a small fire detour (adding 4 miles), how is that possible with all the rain we've gotten! The Wind River Range (referred to as just 'The Winds' usually)begins south of Dubois and ends just north of Atlantic City, WY, where the Great Basin starts for a SOBO. The Winds were spectacular! It reminded me a lot of the High Sierras, with jagged impressive peaks flanked by wonderful high mountain streams and lakes. So there was delicious water everywhere, it's always nice not to have to worry about water for a while. We continued to have gnarly weather: rain, hail, and t-storms at times. Forced to set up camp in the rain two days in a row. Other than the evening storms and rains the weather was pleasant through The Winds for us. We split up The Winds into two sections, with Pinedale, WY being our resupply point, so three days on each end. This is typically how a thru hiker does it anyway, to keep weight down. We got the worlds fastest hitch into Pinedale, WY when we got out at the trailhead parking lot. I hadn't even taken my pack off to put my poles away and this really great couple from So Cal stopped. Ren & Jesse took the year off to travel around the country in their Ford Camper. We immediately hit it off on the 15 mile drive down to Pinedale. We invited them to have lunch with us at the Wind River Range Brewery, they were so generous and bought us lunch! Such a rad couple we exchanged information and we plan on keeping in touch! There is a great pic of Ren and Jesse below outside the Brewery in Pinedale. Thanks you two, it was fantastic trail magic and great company...keep in touch! So we had to hitch back to the trailhead from Pinedale the next morning. We posted up at the road that leads up to the trailhead. A police officer came by and told us that hitchhiking in WY is illegal. I told her we were just encouraging the drivers and she drove off with a scowled look on her face. I remember hearing other hikers being harassed about hitching in WY but I also remember hearing that the law has changed and it's now legal. So I quickly Googled it and sure enough as of July 1, 2013 hitching in WY is legal. About 5 minutes later the same police officer came back and sort of quasi appologized and said she had called the station on us and was told it's now legal....was she planning on arresting us if it wasn't legal? I said to her, the good news is you can give us a hitch up to the trailhead! She laughed and said she couldn't go that far, 10 minutes later we got a ride from a brash NY'r who was working at one of the mountain resorts as a Chef for the summer. I rolled my ankle pretty bad the last day in The Winds but luckily within a couple days the swelling went way down. The flatter terrain of the Great Basin was good timing. The trail goes right thru South Pass City, WY. It's now a Historic Landmark, it was once the site of a very productive gold mine production. The Clarissa Gold Mine is what made South Pass City & nearby Atlantic City, WY (only 3 miles away) what they once were and are today. Today South Pass City is mostly just a really cool walking museum and ghost town. We spent a good hour here walking around enjoying the museum and looking at the original old buildings and how life was here in the late 19th century. Not much else here for a thru hiker so we walked on to Atlantic City. What a quirky middle-of-nowhere town this is, similar to Leadore, ID. There really isn't much here either but there was a sign welcoming CDT Hikers at the 'store'. There is a Mercantile and local bar. The Mercantile is a really beautiful building, historic and has had many faces over the last 150 years: it was a store that had gambling tables, a saloon, post office and dance floor at one time. Calamity Jane was once a dance hall girl here. Now its a restaurant and bar with the original saloon still intact. We weren't going to spend the night but the nice owner at Miners Grubstake (the local bar, next to the Mercantile) who held our food drop boxes for us, offered to let us stay in their Teepee out front. How could we turn that down!? Plus they had beer and it was still too hot out, easy decision really. We entered the Great Basin early the next morning. The first day in the Basin was pretty perfect. Some nice cooling cloud cover made the walking pleasant...for just the first day! And yes, we had a thunderstorm right on us our first day...more too-close lightning and yes we were very exposed...again! We came across Styles, who must be the last NOBO thru hiker, and he gave us precise water info for the Basin. It was nice to have that confidence rather than relying on the info on our maps which can be unreliable. The water in the Basin is just gross, throw in a 30 mile dry stretch and the relentless sun & heat and it's miserable. There is clearly an understanding in the Basin that NOTHING can grow over 2.5 feet tall. There is NO shade and NO trees, all conspiring to making the experience very challenging. With that said the Great Basin is beautiful...at the right times. The mornings and evenings are stunning. The vastness of the Basin creates the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets I've ever seen. The evening thunderstorms can be seen 100 miles away and the clouds from these storms create fantastic light bouncing off other distant clouds and the flat terrain around you. There are also Antelope in the Basin....A LOT of Antelope, EVERYWHERE! Staggering numbers of Antelope bounding everywhere you look. We also saw Mustangs (wild horses), unexpected and so cool to see...how Western! Our hitch into Rawlins was unique. A WY State Trooper pulled over and told us about a prison escapee in the area and he wanted to run our ID's. Of course everything checked out and the trooper gave us a ride into town. Safety had to sit in the 'cage' and I was up front with WY State Trooper Kennedy! Got into town, got a room and desperately needed to do laundry after 11 days without. Ended up going out to dinner at this dive-ish restaurant/bar. Had dinner and started to play pool when a couple of locals started to chat us up. They couldn't believe what we were doing and bought us some beer. We spent a couple hours drinking beer and playing pool with them. We went to close out our tab and they picked up our dinner and drinks for us too! The trail magic in WY has been unbelievable, the generosity of people continues to amaze me on my journeys. Big animal count: 2 moose, 9 Elk, 318 Antelope, 22 Mustangs