Day 63: Rush to Big Sandy Lodge

Tuesday, August 18

Today we were heading into Big Sandy Lodge. Big Sandy is a lodge just on the outskirts of the Winds. They hold hiker packages if you stay the night. The nightly rate also includes dinner, breakfast, and a sack lunch. 

Our guide noted that you need to be there before 3pm so they will cook enough food for you. So we decided to leave a little early so we could make the 23 miles to the lodge.

Most of the day was pretty mild. Just some little ups and downs all day. We had some awesome views of the high peaks to the east of us.

Near the end of the day we crossed a river and saw a ton of what looked like antelope tracks. It looked like a HUGE heard. Hundreds of tracks. The tracks followed the trail for a few miles and 10 feet on either side of the trail was smashed down by the heard.

After a while we came up to a horse camp. A few horses were grazing in the meadow. Past the horses we looked out onto the meadow and saw what we thought were a bunch of rocks. When we got closer we noticed they were sheep. Hundreds and hundreds of sheep. It was crazy. They all turned their heads and looked at us. A few dogs were guarding the heard and kept a close eye on us as we passed.

We had rushed all day and made it to the lodge by 3pm. We checked in and the owner told us that she didn't know why that 3pm rule was written in the guide because it didn't matter when we arrived. There would be plenty of food for us

The lodge was cool. There were about 11 small cabins, non of which have electricity. In fact even the lodge didn't have electricity. Our cabin had a bed, 2 kerosene lamps and a wood burning stove. There was a bath house that had propane headed showers and propane lamps inside.

Dinner was served in the lodge for all the guests. It was probably the best meal I've had all trail. Fried flounder, fresh tartar sauce, homemade hush puppies, broccoli, rice, homemade coleslaw, and peach cobbler. It was so good. Basically a home cooked meal and there was enough for us all to eat as much as we wanted.

We lit the wood stove as we were going to bed to heat up our cabin.