7/28 - 8/4/06 Southern Wyoming Recap - On the trail of the Continental Divide |
Wyoming Adventures Photo Gallery |
October - Once you get behind in a blog, it's really hard to catch up. We covered a lot of ground in those weeks too. Well, here's the first installment of our Wyoming adventures.
At Muddy Pass, where US40 crosses the Divide westbound toward Steamboat Springs,
we turned north on CO14, bound for Encampment, Wyo. This was ranch country, the
Platte River valley spread below the ridgelines of the Rockies. We had gotten
a late start due to time spent working through software setup issues with the
new computer we had just picked up. Near the border, with the prospect of a late
dinner at our destination, we decided to pull off the highway & fix a quick
stir fry. Then we pushed on through Riverside & Encampment, up a steep grade
on WY70, then down 17 miles of dusty gravel road to Hog Park Reservoir where
we spent 2 nights at the lakeside Forest Service campground.
We were just a few miles from the point where the CDT crossed the state border,
so we drove through the lodgepole pine forest, found the trail & set off
on a day hike. It was a well marked segment of trail, abused in places by heavy
ATV use, but still a nice hike. We found the border crossing, signed only northbound,
ie, no Colorado sign southbound. Nearby we collected several hand sized "books" of
mica, glittering in the afternoon sun.
Along the trail we noticed that virtually every pine tree was riddled by bark beetles. Many trees remained healthy, sealing off the beetle holes with sap, but lots were losing the battle. The bark beetle is a big problem throughout the mountain West, with vast numbers of trees dying from Arizona to Canada.
Back at camp that evening we toasted marshmallows, inserting chocolate chunks into the warm goo for s'mores without the graham crackers. Next morning we got ready for a lake float, discovering when the main chamber wouldn't inflate that the raft had a tear in the side.
Oh well… we packed up & headed back to Encampment, then north to I-80 & west to Rawlins. With some affairs to take care of in town, we spent two nights at an RV park on the western edge of town. We had only been set up for an hour when a terrific thunderstorm blew up. I took down the awning in between some of the early blasts, getting a good soaking in the process. Wrecked awnings were stacked next to the garbage dumpsters the next day.
Our errands included a visit to the Post Office where we learned that our hiking
friends, Jim & Ginny were in town. We looked for them but didn't
connect, before heading west to Wamsutter for some rockhounding in the Red
Desert. This is a very desolate area, but it turned out to be a beehive of
activity: Natural gas wells were being drilled in a massive grid pattern, wells
maybe a mile apart & stretching as far as we could see in every direction.
We collected a couple of boxes of turatella agate (small seashells embedded
in a black agate matrix) & several pounds of petrified algae, which produces
lovely swirl patterns when cut & polished.
In Wyoming the Divide splits, following two ridge lines to the northwest that define
the Great Divide Basin, whose waters (what little there is) never reach the
sea. Part of the CDT traverses the Basin & Liz wanted to hike it. We drove
north from Rawlins on US287, turning west at Bairoil onto a BLM road, where
I dropped Liz off to start her walk. I found a good spot to camp & set
up. After Liz arrived we rockhounded for a while, finding petrified wood scattered
around our site. Liz tried to pickup a chunk she spotted about 10 feet from
Gypsy's door, but couldn't budge it. I tried to pry it out, then
got the shovel & dug up a huge 40-pound block of multi-hued wood, a real
prize. We later found a large trove of petrified wood a few miles farther on,
chunks from thumb-sized to bricks & even larger.
Our camp was near a spring which provided water for a small herd of cattle, a couple of bands of wild horses & several family groups of antelope. We also saw a prairie sage hen & her chicks. Later we saw a group of 5 Basin Elk bulls trotting along together, rare we understand. After 3 days in the basin, we headed on north & west. On our way out we startled a golden eagle.
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