I left my hiking boots in the trunk of the Uber.

[Ipasha Jen]

Here we go! 2023! Looking for Teapot and JayW to chime in on this.

I wasn’t planning a GNP trip this year but Tina is a wizard and always manages to convince me. How could I resist a backcountry trip with the chat page legends: Teapot 57, JayW and Tibber!

This was supposed to be the year the hubby finally tagged along but he tweaked his back the week before and decided it wasn’t his year

So Maia and I left Chicago on July 8, had an unplanned long layover at MSP where we ate a lot of food and arrived in Calgary around 2am. We called an Uber to take us to the Teapot estate and yes I did not realize until the next morning that I had left my boots in the trunk of the Uber

[Jay w]

Ding-dong, the boots are dead! Which old boots? The Uber boots
Ding-dong, the Uber boots are dead
Wake up, you sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed
Wake up, the Uber boots are dead!

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[teapot57]

This wasn’t a good trip as far as boots are concerned. I was thinking of calling my summer trip report “A Series of Unfortunate Events.” Jen’s boot debacle being the start of it.

[Ipasha Jen]

I gave up my laptop for a phone plus I have a really short attention span so I do apologize for the small snippets of this trip report.

After a brief moment of panic, Tina told me she had a pair of new unbroken in boots that might work for me. And they did!
We headed south to the park and met our other friends for dinner at the Cattle Baron.

I’m pretty sure the waitress took a pic of our group but I don’t have it? Tina? Jay W??

[Ipasha Jen]

Hiking Day 1:
Good start to the day!

[Ipasha Jen]

I spent the last 24 hours asking “who has the group photo?”
Apparently no one has it.
So here we go into the belly.
CME:
GAB
HEL
ELF
GLH
GLH
COS
out to CME
Tina scored a large group permit so originally this was a permit for 9-12 people. It slowly dwindled down and so sadly we ended up with a group of 5:)

Day 1:

DAY ONE:

[Jay w]

You're prompting me to get rolling on my trip report. I'm up to July 7th, two days before we started the backpack. In lieu of the "Cattle Barron" group photo, I'll offer this.

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Photo by Julie Joy

Jay

[Ipasha Jen]

Day 2 Gable creek to Helen Lake

This hike felt longer than I thought it should (as usual)

[Jay w]

Shut my mouth. I was just (finally) working on the photos from the hike to Helen. I made it about half way through, but here's one from the morning.

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Seeing the pictures here make me want to write the report on GNP chat rather than wordpress. Hike to Helen, with a morning greeting of Ellen (the mule). Anyway, we're out of town being lazy, so I had some time yesterday to spend on the pictures. Here's one from the hike today in northern MN. (Off topic.)

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I had a hard time keep the hands warm (10F).

Jay

[teapot57]

A few things to add from my end:

I’ll never forget the look on Jen’s face when she told me she left her boots in the Uber, just as we were getting ready to walk out the door for our 3.5 hour drive to the park. I also remember being very concerned for her feet because the Altra Lone Peaks I lent her were a size too small. In the end, I was worrying about the wrong person’s feet.

I actually had a medium group permit for 1-8 people. The group members changed a few times before we left but we ended up with 5 completing the trip: Jen, Maia, Jay, Deborah (a high school friend of tibber’s), and me. Jay was a trooper sticking it out with all of us gals! I think it was tibber who described it as “Jay with his multi-aged harem”. It was a great group. We got along well and had a lot of fun. We all hiked together sometimes, and other times we broke into two groups, with Jay and Deborah (the former long distance running athlete) being the faster group, Jen and I taking up the rear, and Maia bouncing back and forth between.

I remember the first two days being hot hot hot. I think that’s why the trek to Helen felt so long. I don’t have many photos from our night at Helen because my phone got wet from drenching myself with water at the stream between Helen and Elizabeth. The photo of Jen below was pre-dunk. The rest turned out something like the one of Jay.

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[tibber]

I am enjoying everyone's reporting and photos . Flat Matt looks like he had the best time so far.

[Ipasha Jen]

Maia was the first one up the morning at Helen. She was hoping to see the moose. She crawled back into the tent disappointed and I crawled out to use the pit. I was on my way back when I looked up the trail towards the lake and there was the mama moose. I tried to call out to Maia but she couldn’t hear me because it had started to rain. And it rained all morning. We decided to just hunker down since it would be a short walk to ELF. We hunkered until about 1pm before finally heading out.

[paul]

I love that Sunrise photo at Helen lake! Keep the pictures coming.

-Paul

I guess I should start doing my TR for this season. I've been lazy though.

[Ipasha Jen]

After making some new friends at ELF we headed onward to GLH. No line in at the stream crossing but it was easy peasy.

[Ipasha Jen]

2 nights at Glens Head was a nice rest. We did another hunker down in the rain and somewhere in the middle Calzone arrived. She was able to get her tent setup just before the rain came again. This was her first night of a long PNT through hike and we were so happy to meet her. Such a positive person.
Meanwhile the uncut brush between the food prep and the pit toilet was less than pleasant and made for some Wet trips to the potty.