Another day out in the Rockies. Up for a run again. With Kate for the first bit, then solo. Picked our side of town, which is hillier, but kept the pace easy and it was a nice run.
I used “Alltrails” online to find another good hiking trail at the top of the Canyon maybe a 30 min drive away. When I had planned this trip, I envisioned doing at least one “summit” but it seems like a lot of the large peaks in the Wind River Range are hard to get to. Mainly accessed through backpacking. I suppose that’s part of the cool thing of the Wind River range: it’s a lot of designated wilderness area.
The hike was a ~9ish mile out and back through mainly pine forest with occasional scrub meadows. The designation was a set of two reservoirs that honestly looked like mountain lakes if you didn’t know they were man made. This made for easy trails; only a slight incline on the way out, but also good for Dash. I think he got to swim 5 times on the hike.
The first lake was maybe only a 30 minute hike too, and then we ran along that for a while before cutting along a stream to the next lake. We saw a decent number of trail runners, but the largest user of the trails were mountain bikers. These we saw once every 10-15 minutes or so. Lander must have a large percentage of their community that is into outdoor activities. At only 7300 people or so, it sure seems like a lot of people are out utilizing the vast trail network right out their back door. That’s why you’d live there, I suppose.
We both dunked in as well at the 2nd lake (very chilly) and soaked in the views of snow capped peaks in the distance over lunch. My legs were pretty heavy with a run + the hike, but the trek back was easy enough.
Dinner was at the Italian Restaurant in town. It was definitely a bit pricy, but also had huge portions and good drinks. The food was well done as well. Kate had a Clam Linguine and I had a chicken-bacon Gnocchi. I could barely finish my plate, which is saying something. Kate wasn’t able to finish hers.
Downtown is only a ~5 min walk from our Airbnb, which was definitely a plus when I booked it. It’s nice to leave once for the day via car for the hike and then not have to get back in the car again for the day.
I wouldn’t say either hike we did was out of this world amazing, but it’s good hiking in the area and a cool town to explore. Nice to stay in Lander.
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