Heading Towards Basecamp

 

After our visit with Devils Tower, we still had a fair amount of driving to do to get away from the Sturgis motorcycle rally and find an open motel. We ended up finding a vacancy in Sheridan, Wyoming which is situated at the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming. We decided to do a little exploring after getting checked in and drove up a nearby canyon formed by the Tongue River. It didn't disappoint.

We drove as far as we could and eventually the road came to an end due to the canyon walls boxing us in and a small gravel parking lot. There we parked and cooled our heels as dusk fell on the Bighorn mountains. Above us were two natural arches high up on the canyon walls though only one can be seen in the picture above. It was a beautiful place to end our day.

Our plan once arriving in Wyoming was to set up a basecamp of sorts at an AirBnB and we had one reserved for us in Riverton, Wyoming near the foothills of the Wind River mountain range. But to get there, we decided to take the scenic route and drive up and over the Bighorn mountains the following day. Above is a picture of our drive up and into the mountains on a largely Canadian (I think) smoke obscured day. The east side of the mountains had obviously suffered a large fire sometime in their recent past as many of the trees were blackened.

For some reason, I think of moose in Canada or even northern Minnesota but it never occurred to me that there might be some in Wyoming. So it caught me entirely by surprise as I was starting the drive out of the Bighorn mountains and looked out in a grassy area near the road and saw a large cow moose standing there. I quickly turned around and we parked alongside the road about 50 feet away to take this picture. My passengers wanted to get out but I told them to stay inside as I have heard moose can be very territorial. As we drove away, I counted myself lucky to see a moose but during the course of the trip, I would see two more, both very large males and one less than 20 feet from my vehicle.

On the last stretch of road out of the Bighorns, we came to a closed parking lot that had been barricaded off from traffic. There were a group of Sturgis motorcyclists parked by the barricades on the entrance and another vehicle parked by the barricades by the exit. Wanting to stretch our legs, we parked next to the other vehicle at the exit and walked back up the parking lot to see what there might be to see. The restrooms were apparently under construction which is the reason for the closure but being a Saturday, there was no construction going on then so we followed the trail behind the restrooms and found the above scene. Google Maps just lists it as a scenic pull off along Shell Creek and I tend to agree. 

Eventually we made our way down to Riverton, found our AirBnB rental for the next four nights and got settled in, making ourselves some dinner that we didn't have to order off a menu.