Starting with a Twist, or a few....

Well, it has been quite the adventure and I have only been in the Big Horns for 7 days…and won’t be here much longer. Alright so lets rewind about nine days to last Friday, June 10th.
It all started when we forgot to get gas at a lunch stop as we were driving to WY from Chicago. We discovered this just as we hit the middle of Buffalo and Gillette with 45 miles both ways. We decided no reason to turn around to chance the same distance, so we go as far as we can on what is left in our reserve tank of our rockin’ mini van. Just as Dave (my trip leader) starts to feel the gas spittin’ we cross ‘Crazy Women Creek.’





Just after the creek was an exit that goes straight into this house/farm. “Hepp Brother’s Farm.” During this time our car was pretty quiet with a few jokes here and there to keep our optimistic attitudes in check. We pull off at Crazy Women Creek exit, I mean come on, who wouldn’t with a name like that in our circumstances?! Haha. Not gunna lie, I was a little spectacle, but as we pulled into the drive there were two 5 gallon gas tanks right outside the garage. Of course there were! Robbie goes up to the front door and explains the situation to our newly made friend Paul. He offers as much as we need as if it wasn’t the first time this has happened to him. Thank goodness for Paul! In fact, he is the owner of the nearest gas station 15 miles down the hwy. He tells us to be sure to go to that one to fill up. Now, we have our gas, Dave, Robbie, and I are in shock of all that has happened. So random. Dave’s next task was to document this. How many people stop and bum gas from the Hepp Brother’s at Crazy Women Creek?! So we trek about ¼ mile back up the hwy to capture the photo Dave wanted to badly! … hilarious.


We finally make it into Sheridan and stay at a KOA (Kampgrounds of America for all you dumbies! ☺) for the night. Saturday’s plan was to get up and check out our trail heads, come back and take inventory, then spend some quiet alone time for a couple hours to prepare for the week. We should have known that because of the gas event on Friday that our plan would not be accurate.

THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF A WEEK FULL OF THE UNEXPECTED…. Without going into extreme detail, I am going to list off all the events that took place this week.

_Saturday
1) 7:45am Drive to Burgess Junction Ranger Station to simply check in with them. Discover that the road we reach our Trail Head (TH) on is closed due to snow. This is the advise we got, “There is going to be anywhere from 1 to 10 feet of snow up on those trails.” Wonderful.




2) Check out the road for ourselves and pull in 200 yards before our sweet mini van can’t go on.
3) Begin traveling on HWY 14 south in the Big Horns to find dry land to plan a 5 night 6 day hike.
4) Discover Shell Canyon with Ranger Creek Station and Campground, Bench Trail at Post Creek, and Chimney Rock after nearly 3 hours of driving up and down a 3,000ft elevation difference canyon. The car remained positive, but an extremely quiet and thoughtful ride. With no food in our bellies and the altitude starting to kick in, we finally decide to head back to Sheridan to map out a route.
5) 3:00pm Find a book store and purchase some Topo Maps to begin linking different trails together to get a full trip in. After picking our brains we decide to sleep on it so we head back to KOA and take inventory and hit the hay.

_Sunday
6) Start fresh with breakfast and mapping routes. We finally have a TH and a TE and are eager for out team to meet us in Dayton to begin.
7) Our team arrives nearly 2 hours late as we wait at a park for them. We finally get to meet the team, full of energy of course, and head up the mnt!
8) We pull into our first TH and discover we cannot reach it because it is on Private Property. Of course. So we pull into the next road over about ¼ mile back up the road and find out it is a lady name Gal’s camp called Kedesh Ranch. She and her sons willingly allow us to unload and start our hike from their property until we reach BLM and back into the National Forest.
9) Finally begin hiking about 8pm with our Student Leaders of the day in the lead. Our only direction from the ranchers to get back to our trail was to “follow the fence to the gate.” Sweet… That didn’t work out so well. The terrane was intense. Mix desert and mountains.





10) Nearly an hour in we were still searching for water and our campsite that should have only been a 20min hike in.
11) About 11pm we discover a stream down a steep hill. As we trek down, our friend Jordan sprains his ankle pretty badly. Dave directs Robbie and I to take control of water fill up and lead the group to set up camp. We had to retrace our steps so we stayed of BLM property.
12) About midnight we have our tents up and dinner cooking.



_Monday
12) Dave and Tom (the youth pastor) wake up early to hike back to the camp to contact LeaderTreks and figure out an evac plan for our injured friend Jordan. My morning devos get interrupted by a four wheeler coming in to load up Jordan and evac him out. I am ordered to take two of the adults back to camp to drive up the canyon, pick up their vans at the TE in Ranger Creek and load up the kids.
13) I begin the drive up the canyon and see two red flashing lights…. ROAD CLOSED. There had been a landside on the canyon road.
14) Jordan is taken to a clinic 30 min away and Robbie and I stay with the students on the green grassy camp area doing team builders and lunch.
15) 3:30 rolls around and the canyon opens up and Jordan is back from the clinic on crutches. Gal offers a cabin for Jordan and an adult to stay at for the week as the rest of us head up to our trail end to set up base camp and do some day hikes.
16) We get to Rancher Creek and just as we begin setting up tents, it rains. The rain was off and on all night and into the morning.

_Tuesday
17) We do a day hike up snow show pass. With cold, wet shoes from the snow drifts we trekked through, we finally make it to the top. It was a fairly easy day on Tuesday.
18) That night a student’s stomach was not feeling well and we had to evac her in the morning to the cabin at the ranch with Jordan and Nora also.






_Wednesday
19) Decide to break camp and hike up Adelaide Lake Trail. We starting the trip with trouble finding water, and now that we were higher up we had trouble finding trails that were crossable. The river was roaring because of the glacier run off.
20) About 3 hours got us about 1.5 miles up and we struggled to cross the over flowing creeks. A few soaked shoes and one girl with wet pants from a slip. We set up a base camp at the first dry land we find. There was moose and bear poop everywhere. Definitely in some wildlife country. Robbie almost stepped on a baby dear, Bambie, as we were crossing through a valley. It was definitely sick and would not even lift his head as we stood less than 5 feet from it.






_Thursday
21) Time to tear down camp and take Old Mail Trail Loop to reach Ranger Creek that night. We hit 5 foot snow drifts ½ mile into the hike. Deciding to continue, we preserver through that mess.
22) With hope of the snow to clear, we only hit more and more. No one is prepared for this, shoes and clothes are soaked by now.
23) Things continue to get worse. We hit a ranging river that seems uncrossable. We find a sturdy tree that is over the water and set up some ropes to cross. A definite nail biting moment. If anyone where to fall in, bad news bears. Thank the Lord everyone made it across safe.
24) Reaching the top of the hill we know we must continue on. So back down the other side of the hill we hit a valley. Beautiful valley, but marsh land galore. The road we needed to cross over the river at was under the water too much. No way we could put 20 students through that depth of water.
25) 30 then 45 mins pass and we have searched up and down the river numerous times and cannot cross anywhere. Night was near, students are freezing, wet, and tired and we couldn’t go on.
26) We retrace steps again back up the hill to set up camp. We get two fires going, the tarp up, and tents stacked in. Then… guess what’s next, yup. Rain. Dinner and Team Time came and went fast.
27) Just as we were getting into tents for the night, the wolves just a few valleys away began howling. Yup, wolves. Great. Our bear bag was not hung and not placed far enough away from camp, the dinner pots didn’t get cleaned, and we had 20 kids up on top of a mountain. Sleep didn’t come that night…. But I will tell you what did.







_Friday
28) Snow. 1:30 am I hear “pitter patter, pitter patter.” Just as we thought all of our trials were over, we get showered with more. Boots outside, bags outside, and tent walls caving in, the morning never seemed to come.
29) Knowing the only way back to Ranger Creek was the way we came, we began our trek back from the way we came through the 5 foot drifts and log river crossing we already accomplished, but now with 5-7 inches of fresh snow. Wonderful.
30) Finally reaching the last mile stretch with the sun shining means mud everywhere. Muddy muddy trail back to the vans. The sight of two white vans never felt so good.
31) Pack up quickly and head back to Sheridan, about 1 hr 15 min drive… o wait, not this time. We get to HWY 14 North and yup, you guessed it, ROAD CLOSED. So we take the longest route possible back to Sheridan. 3 hour drive, with road construction….
32) It never seems to end!







So, quite the experience for a first LeaderTreks Trip. I am leaving out all the great stuff. I learned a lot about leading from the back. About the wilderness and backpacking. About unpredictability. About dealing and handling the unexpected. About honestly with self and others. I am learning how the body is meant to work together. Healing in lives is definitely taking place. God is expanding His love and leadership into the lives of youth, which is encouraging the older generations.


We are currently in the Starbucks in Sheridan getting ready to head south to discover a new trail that is not covered in snow. We have two weeks without any students because of one drop out. We were supposed to be in the Tetons walking through a discipleship devotional together, but instead we will be blazing a new place. I will keep you updated!

Thanks to all who are following. Love you all.

Daddy- Happy Father’s Day. You are the best Dad a girl could as for. You are the roots to the rose between the three thrones. Thanks for everything. Enjoy the condo at Table Rock.