June 7, Sunday: Bighorn Mountains to Bighorn Canyon Recreation Area

Woke to beautiful clear skies with the sun just rising over the mountain and coming through the trees at my campsite.  No moose, this morning, but did have a deer.  Although I wanted to just sit outside and enjoy the great forest campsite, I left early so that I would have a better chance of seeing the mountain views in good weather - it was forecast to cloud up again later in the day.  (Sort of like South Carolina's weather:  hot and humid, chance of showers, except their hot is low 80s and no humidity.)  I also wanted to get where I could phone Jack and assure him that a bear or Big Foot didn't get me last night.

I drove west on the Bighorn Scenic Highway (north part of the Bighorns) and took the cutoff for the Medicine Wheel Passage.  The views were gorgeous and the weather was clear.

When I stopped at a turnoff to take a photo, this was by the side of the road.  Must be a dinosaur, right?

Yup, lots of snow!

The dirt road off the Passage to the Medicine Wheel was one lane wide with sheer dropoffs on one side and snaked up the side of Medicine Mountain.  I parked in the parking lot and walked uphill the 11/2 miles to the Medicine Wheel, including a couple of stretches that were snow-covered.  At 8,000 feet, I could have used a little more oxygen for this walk!

The Medicine Wheel is an ancient Indian circle of rocks with interior spokes.  The experts nor the Indians of today do not know the purpose of the wheel, more of which are found throughout North America, but they speculate it may have been a calendar.  Supposedly, two of the rock formations line up perfectly with ones in Mexico and Canada.  It is used today for ceremonial purposes and they have put up a wooden fence around it that is covered in bits of cloth, often with a piece of jewely.

Path to Medicine Wheel on the mountain in the distance, beyond the snow

Part of the path was snow covered

Spokes of the wheel

Rocks inside the Wheel and some items from a recent ceremony

I walked back along the same path and drove back down the mountain in 2nd gear the whole way.  I backtracked 20 minutes to the cutoff and resumed my drive on the Bighorn Scenic Highway west, stopping frequently to take photos.

View from the Medicine Wheel

Near the end of the scenic portion of the highway, I came to Shell Creek Falls and Shell Creek Canyon. This waterfall is somewhat unique as it is not a result of erosion, but occurs at a major fault in the rocks.  Took a half hour walk around the Falls, and took a lot of photos.  Shell Creek Canyon was beautiful, but had no turnouts so I could not take photos there.

How do these trees grow out of sheer rock?

I returned to the RV and finally headed north into Greybull where I stopped to pick up a few groceries and household (RV) items.

In Lovell, I picked up the one way in and out road up to Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area.  I stopped at Devil's Canyon (part of the Bighorn Canyon) for fantastic views and photos.

I continued north to the end of the road where I got a campsite overlooking the river where the canyon walls were not very high, but were a dramatic blood red.  I was the only one in the campground....The weather was beautiful and I enjoyed my dinner outside watching the river...

June 6, 2015, Sunday: Big Horn Mountains

Spent a night beside the roaring creek and woke to sunny, clear skies but cold.  The outside 

thermometer is not working, but it was only 51 degrees inside, so probably in the 40's out there.  I put the furnace on just to get the chill off.

My moose buddy is back, enjoying a light breakfast of grass and weeds...but wait, there's more!  A little later, my moose brought along two friends...lots of photos.  

 After delaying my departure to watch the moose, I continued east on the Cloud Peak Highway over the Powder River Pass at 9,666 feet.  Snow capped peaks were beautiful.

At Loaf Mountain overlook, you can see three major peaks – Loaf Mountain at 11,722 ft., Big Horn Peak at 12,324 ft., and Darton Peak at 12,275 ft.  The Big Horn Mountains also contain the Cloud Peak Wilderness and the Big Horn National Forest – now that is conservation-protection!

Coming down the west side of the mountains, I came into the small town of Buffalo, famous for its Occidental Hotel where Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid, Calamity Jane, Buffalo Bill Cody and Teddy Roosevelt all stayed (separate rooms of course, except maybe for Buffalo Bill and Calamity Jane.  As long as I am having fun speculating, maybe Butch and Sundance....?).  I walked around town, visited a few shops but nothing caught my eye.  I did come across an old time auctioneer doing his magic unintelligible fast-talking auction-speak out of a back of a pickup truck.  A bunch of cowboys/farmers were gathered around looking to buy used small ranch and household stuff.  I took a video, but the sound was too poor to post.  Good entertainment and people watching!  

Lobby of Occidental Hotel

A Great Tricycle!

I left Buffalo driving north (even though the sign said west) on I 90 and decided to visit Fort Phil Kearny.  I had previously decided to skip it because I had seen Fort Laramie a few days before and how different could it be?  Well, the answer is LOTS different!  OK, here comes the old west history lesson that I learned there:  Fort Phil Kearny was a military fort right from the beginning, built to serve the Bozeman Trail.  Back at Fort Laramie in 1851, the Great White Father signed a treaty with the Indians that allowed the white man to cross Indian territories on the Oregon, California and Mormon trails.  Then gold was found in northwest Montana and the gold seekers needed a faster way to get there than skirting Indian lands by going upstream on the Missouri and then overland.  So Mr. Bozeman found that shortcut, but it cut through the last remaining good hunting grounds of the Indians and they were not happy.  They warned the government they were breaking the treaty and that the massive wagon trains spread out hundreds of yards wide were denuding the grasslands and killing the little game that remained.  And still they came in greater and greater numbers. 

Finally, the Indians began to attack the wagon trains, so the Great White Father decided he had to protect all those good citizens and built a series of forts on Indian Territory in violation of the treaty, the largest of which was Fort Phil Kearny.  It was a stockaded fort and the task of finding wood to build it meant 80 wagons a day for two years were sent to clearcut surrounding areas,making these wood bearing wagons prime targets for the Indians.  For the first time in known history, the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapahoe formed an alliance and a battle plan that lured the protective detail away from the fort and killed 80 soldiers in 30 minutes.  The Indian Wars raged for two years until peace was forged in 1868, with the U. S. Government agreeing to remove the forts and close the Bozeman Trail.  Shortly afterward, the Cheyenne burned down the hated fort.  And so, no original structures remain, but there are placards and a small section of stockade built to illustrate how everything would have looked.  

The two folks who are in the visitor center/mini-museum were impressive with their knowledge and enthusiasm for sharing the history.  Even though a thunder and lightening storm shortened my walk about the grounds, I am so glad I stopped.  Okay, history lecture over.

I continued north to Sheridan, Wyoming where I asked the visitor center to check the weather.  I wanted to head back west over the Big Horn Mountains at this northern end on the Big Horn Scenic Highway, but only if the weather was okay.  All I could see was heavy dark clouds everywhere, but she assured me that the weather was good up in the mountains and even checked a webcam.  So, I headed up the mountains with magnificent views of the green (!) valley below.  As I climbed higher, the clouds got lower and I decided to stop at the closest campground so I could enjoy the views in better weather as tomorrow is supposed to be better.  Luckily, the first campground actually had some sites with electricity – unusual for a forest campground.  Got settled in to my heavily forested campsite among three or four others on this loop of about 20 sites when it began to drizzle (so much for the weather forecast) and settled in to organize all the photos from the last couple of days and write the blog entries that will have to wait until I get internet, probably sometime tomorrow.  Not even phone service up here in the woods....

View heading East as I head up the Bighorn Mountains

Jeeze, another too-long post … Sorry.   Hope you enjoy the pictures.

June 5, 2015, Saturday: Casper to the Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming

Wow, What A Day!!! Badlands, Canyons, Raging Rivers and a Moose, Oh My!

Left the nasty campground in Casper and headed west on Route 20.  Cattle and more cattle.  

It was a fairly boring drive until I got to Hell's Half Acre – true badlands. Unfortunately, it was surrounded with chain link fencing and it was cloudy, but I still managed to get some decent photos.

I continued west on Route 20 and as I approached Shoshoni there were occasional hoodoos (like Bryce Canyon) and some ancient sand dunes that are now partially covered in grass. No place to stop for photos.

Snapped a photo of one of these signs – I have seen them on every Wyoming road. I am also seeing some white tailed deer and pronghorns – look something like a deer, but are super fast. Here's what I learned from a convenient roadside plaque: They can sprint almost 70 mph and are second only to cheetahs, but unlike cheetahs they can run 30 mph for 15 miles! They migrate long distances throughout the Rockies and west, having to cross roads, highways and fencing.

At Shoshoni, the road turns north and skirts the pretty Boysen Reservoir and through the spectacular Wind River Canyon. The Wind River at the bottom of the canyon runs north due to some strange geological happenings eons ago. The road and railroad runs near the river with 2500 foot high walls towering on both sides. The various rocks are identified as I drove through the canyon with some of these basement rocks over a billion years old and every color and structure you can imagine. The drive includes three short tunnels that go right through bedrock.

In one spot there was road construction where they repairing a massive mud slide that had completely closed the road for days. Across the river, the railroad was repairing sections of track from multiple mud slides. Wyoming just isn't made to handle this much rain, but it sure makes what is normally vast drab brown/gray rangeland green and pretty.  

Towards the end of the canyon, dramatic red sandstone cliffs appear and stay with me as I drive into Thermopolis. The Indians used the natural mineral spring waters here and deeded them to the U. S. Government with the provision that they maintain free access to them. So I took advantage and had a nice soak in the stinky 104 degree waters. There are at least 27 different minerals in the water, with the highest concentrations being Bicarbonate, Sulfate, Chloride and Sodium, plus silica, calcium, potassium, etc. Guess I can skip my vitamin pill today. The pool had only two people when I arrived and only five when I left – a nice, relaxing way to end a beautiful drive.  

Mineral Springs that feed the pools

After my soak and lunch and a conversation with Jack (as I did not think I would have phone service later), I continued north on Route 20 to Worland. I was going to stop at their local museum, but it was getting late, dark clouds were beginning to form, and I was a little museumed-out. So I skipped it and headed east (yes, East!  making a long detour to make a loop through the Big Horn Mountains in northern Wyoming) on Route 16 through Ten Sleep. Ten Sleep was the lush camping spot for the Indians that was ten sleeps between Fort Laramie and Yellowstone.

Snow-capped Bighorn Mountains

After the town of Ten Sleep, the road began following the river and I was again in a beautiful canyon – yup, Ten Sleep Canyon. The road began to climb into the southern Big Horn Mountains and is known at the Cloud Peak Scenic Highway. Although the wide road with shoulders is in excellent condition, it climbs steeply, using lots of switchbacks – a beautiful drive. 

The river can just be seen through the trees

My plan was to get a campsite at one of the first Big Horn National Forest campgrounds, but the first one was deep in a valley next to a raging stream that was already over its banks and more rain was forecast. So I skipped that one and continued up and up and came across a gorgeous campground at 8,000 feet. Nothing here but tress, the raging river about 50 feet below the end of the RV and a couple of other campers. I backed myself into a space, only having to get out twice and walk around the RV to make sure I wasn't hitting the tree branches or backing too far and going down the bank into the river. It started sprinkling and as I looked out into the adjacent emtpy campsite, was a moose – big and brown and a bit mangy munching on the uncharacteristically green grass everywhere.  

It started to thunder and lightening and a steady rain came down for about an hour, but nothing violent. The clouds started breaking up about 8, but did have a little more rain during the night. Other than the constant roar of the stream, I spent a quiet night in the forest.

Whew, long post but it was a Big day...