It is very dry here. Very dry. Like less than 10% humidity, every day. And there is no shade anywhere. My skin is trying to fall off. I think it’s succeeding as I look like an overcooked snake shedding it’s skin.

We left the city of Pinedale and headed out toward a lake. Because, this is a swimming vacation and I love water. I found an exposed site overlooking the lake and we called it home for the next few days of “acclimation camping”. This site is at 8,000ft. My lungs and blood and apparently skin need time to adjust to the elevation so I can hike above 10,000ft without getting altitude sickness.

I don’t have a lot of experience car camping for days on end without an agenda. Basically our days consisted of hydrating, swimming, walking at sunrise and sunset, organizing my backpacking gear for our upcoming trip, and writing some of these posts.

Mostly we swam a lot, tried not to melt in the heatwave that was happening, and I took a lot of pictures .

I found a hike nearby and we left early before it was too hot. The hike looked like a nice lakeshore loop I could do. None of it went as planned, but we saw some pretty stuff, got too hot, lost the trail, swam a bunch, and made it back to the van with our first hike at elevation in books.

Woohoo, we’re Wyoming hikers and we’re ready for the big mountains!