June 27th, 2011 - One Last Look and the Folks from Texas

Once more the Loll Staff was on its way to Camp. This time a group of the Staff were headed to Colter Bay in Grand Teton National Park, to meet troop 17 from Austin Texas. The Texas troop had signed up for our cancelled first week at Loll and spent many thousands of dollars on un-transferable airline tickets. The plan, for Texas, give them a week of Scouting in Wyoming, even with the best part of Loll, our Staff.
We also sent off ten of our Staff to Camp Hunt to help them with some clean up projects for a couple of days. It's not being in camp, but it's good to be at work.

In route, we stopped at Hopper Springs in Soda Springs Idaho. Left to right: Leonard Hawkes, Paul Parker, Christian Lippert, Ian Crookston, Jed Powell, Tanner Johnson, and Aaron Bott.

Tanner takes his first taste of Hooper water, he will crave it for the rest of his life.



Aaron gets ready to take another drink.

I didn't take any pictures of the Texans or of John Darrington who met us in Teton Park. I am confident we will have many pictures of them all by the end of the week.

We kept Ian with us and Paul, Leonard, and I headed for Loll over Teton Pass. Here we stop for a pose before the snow covered Teton Range.

Many miles later we were once again passing Indian Lake. The lily pads are coming.

We made it about 3/4th of a mile beyond where we got to last Monday, but this time there was a lot less snow. It was 985 Conner strides from truck to snow pole. Most of these strides were over wet, but hard ground.

The snow at the pole read less than a foot - but it was even better a few feet away, where the road was bare.

The trouble began on the other side of the summit of Calf Creek. Here Ian stands on the beginning of the drift that leads down the shaded hill. There was little open road, and plenty of snow down to the bottom.

The look down the long drift.

From the bottom of the hill, right by the bridge over Calf Creek, looking back up the hill toward the Calf Creek drift. Pretty discouraging - but a look the other way was more helpful.

This is the view looking toward camp. A week ago this was under several feet of snow.

We headed back to the top of the hill. Here is the speed limit sign which was conpletely buried on the 11th.

Here we are headed back to the truck. You can see the downed tree, and the truck in the distance. One can also see how fast the snow is melting.

The drift that stopped our drive. However, the temperature promises to be even higher over the next two days, with warm winds on Wednesday, and more sun, and temperatures in the 80's promised for Friday and into next week.

One last view of Gibson Meadow. No bear this time, although there were two at Ox Bow Lake in Teton Park. There were the first buds of Camas Lily.

The Camp Loll Staff will be headed to Camp Saturday July 1st. Three weeks late, surely the latest opening in my memory, but we are full of promise for the best, if the shortest summer ever.