Wyoming was an entirely different beast. Wyoming is open. Wyoming is wild. Wyoming is the untamed West, full of cowboys and explorers who won't settle down.
Example: we went down a dirt road in the middle of nowhere just to get to Melvin Brewing.
Here I made the delicious mistake of having two beers, and I ended up more wobbly than I expected, because these are some seriously strong beers. I recovered with an order of their famous jalapeno popper eggrolls, which are spicy and wonderful and I've already texted my friend back home that we need to learn how to make them.
Wyoming, in all its untamed glory, has mood swings of weather, shall we say. One minute it was this
Then, as we rolled up the Tetons, it was this
We found a very nice place to camp for the night, and stayed in the van playing games while it angrily rained on and off. After the weather made up its mind to play nice, we went for a quick little walk, then settled in for the night.
Both Ryan and I have been to the Tetons before. He slept in the snow going backcountry with his brother. I did the Jenny Lake loop with a dear friend and her younger siblings. This time, we wanted to do something neither of us had done.
We lined up early to get a coveted spot in the Colter Bay area, and quickly parked Vincent, packed the backpack, did our stretches, and hit the trail. We decided to go big, and chose the 9.5 mile Hermitage Point trail for our hike. This hike follows the shores of Jackson Lake closely, with views of the mountain ranges and the lake... oh yeah, and not a lot of tourists do it, because they're at the marina or the beach.
Walking from the campground added a mile each way to our hike, so all told, we did 11.5 miles that day. Was it worth it? Well, check this out:
Thus far on our trip, we've been very lucky with choosing our routes- we tend to find the way to do a trail that involves the least peril. This time, we chose wrong. We took the shorter route to the point, only to find that the return trip was mostly uphill. By mile 7, I was running out of steam, exposed to the baking sunlight in those open mountain meadows. Mosquitoes and flies were using me as a buffet, despite the liberal amount of bug spray I had wallowed in before our hike. By mile 10, I was in full robot mode. By the time we got back to the trailhead, I had mildly forgotten where I was, and we were out of water and Gatorade. Thankfully, there was a cafe right there. I can only imagine what the non-hikers who filled the place, soaking in temperature controlled air, chomping on wood-fired pizza thought when my stinky, sweaty, flea-bitten, dazed self wandered in and promptly downed about a gallon of water and root beer.
Ryan made me eat a turkey sub before we stumbled off for the last mile of trail back to where Vincent waited. That was wise, because I immediately stripped off my boots and my hiking bra and fell asleep.
Now, as someone who is relatively new to hiking, ten miles in full sun and heat at high elevation is a bit much. I've done 15 mile hikes back in Ohio in just a matter of hours with no need for recovery. This is a totally different game. I was completely wiped out. Ryan hooked me up to our portable TENS unit and kept me pumped full of fluid. He warned me that I would probably feel awful the next day, but you know what? I felt great.
So, that being that, we headed over to Yellowstone, which is approximately next door.
Before we reached Yellowstone, our approximate knowledge of the area was "That's where Old Faithful lives." And this is true, but it is actually the home of a majority of the world's geysers. My rudimentary knowledge of geysers was "they shoot hot water in the air." Now I have been educated, and I will pass along this information. Geysers are thermodynamic features wherein water collects and builds from pressure under the Earth's crust. When volcanoes blew themselves up, they collapsed into cauldera (which we saw in New Mexico). In this case, water boils continuously under the weakened crust, and from time to time, erupts. There's more to it, but I am not a geologist, just a curious bystander.
By some really weird twist of fate, we managed to arrive at the Geyser Basin area a half hour before Old Faithful was scheduled to erupt. Based on historical patterns and gauging the force of each eruption actual geologists are able to predict eruption times for Old Faithful within a ten minute range. We hustled outside and grabbed some seats in time for a four minute display of hot fury.
Afterwards, we continued on the four-mile path around the glacier field, and we honestly could not have timed it any better. We managed to catch four different eruptions through our wandering, and had the chance to observe many bubbling pools of sulphuric acid. The park ranger warned us that the acidity was so high, it could dissolve a bison overnight, and that the water temperatures were well over 200F. With that in mind, I almost keeled over when I watched a young person stoop over the side of the path to dangle her fingers in the water. Thankfully, that pool was cool spring water.
I really enjoyed learning about geysers, but a four mile crowded jaunt full of pushy-shovy tourists was starting to get on my nerves. Ryan decided we should enjoy an ice cream cone, and the crowd inside waiting for cool treats pushed me into a full anxiety attack. Thankfully, Ryan shoved me into a quiet area, we ate our ice cream, and then he put me in the van for the duration of the night.
Now, our dilemma was such that there was ZERO available camping in the park. There was zero available in the National Forest areas just outside the park. We ended up driving back to Idaho and parking under a tree there. The mosquitoes were awful, and we enjoyed our adult Lunchables with a variety of uninvited guests, but still...
... it was lovely respite from the crowds.
The next morning, I took a quick peek at my hiking app and realized we were just two miles away from reaching 100 logged miles. Now, I've tried to log all of our hikes and lengthy walks, but I haven't always succeeded. Caves are impossible because the GPS doesn't work underground. I didn't turn it on once in Hawaii. If the battery on my phone is dead, there is no logging. So while we had most likely hiked more than 100 miles, we had only logged 98. Despite being sore and annoyed, we headed back into Yellowstone, determined to hit that marker.
We headed back in to the more remote parts- the Canyon, in particular. Tourists tend to stay on the West side, with the geysers, so while there weren't as many people, there were definitely enough to irritate and amaze us.
The first was the crowd of people running towards a grizzly bear. Here's a pro-tip: there are only a handful of people in the world who should be running towards a grizzly bear. None of them would do so in flip-flops and track shorts, and none of them are under the age of 15. Ryan and I actually quickly got out of that traffic jam because we really didn't want to see what would happen next.
We stopped at various locations as we meandered through the park- we saw truly magnificent water falls, and we popped in at the Artist's Paint Pots for a glimpse at the oddly colored mineral pools.
We quickly became used to the "Old Egg" smell of sulfur, and obediently stayed on the trails so as to not interfere with fragile thermal landscapes. Basically, any time we saw a possible short hike, we got out, nudged a mile onto the app, took some pictures, enjoyed the scenery, and repeat.
As such, there were many times we were completely alone, which was refreshing. We inhaled musky forest-mountain air and listened to the wind and the water and the wildlife.
But of course, statistically that was not to be the norm, as we again encountered a group of tourists trying to corner in a black bear. Again, not a great idea, and I fumed about it as we headed down the road.
Ah, but as we headed on, my rage was abated by a sight I adore: the bison. I love bison. I identify with them. We appear lazy and docile, but mess with us, and things will get ugly, fast. We can run, jump, and swim, and we will use those horns... but really, seriously, we just want to roll in dust and eat grass. Is that too much to ask?
Yes, there were times that Vincent passed this close to actual wild bison, and believe me, we took every possible safety precaution. We drove slowly and quietly so as to not startled the bison. I was absolutely starry-eyed as we passed these magnificent beasts.
And then there were the tourists.
I was standing next to a large sign in multiple languages that detailed how a bison can kill you when I spotted the bison cornered by tourists.
This particular shot was pretty early in the game, but while the bison just wanted to get its munch on, the tourists were shouting at it, pointing at it, and trying to reach over the fence to touch it.
Eventually, the bison started to feel cornered, and it pushed through the crowds, onto the path.
Now, you would think this would be the part where the crowds would think "Holy crap- there's a 3000lb animal headed my way, looking upset" and get out of the way. Instead, they were bending down to snap pictures, and one fellow took his child and ran up behind it to try to pat it on the butt.
I was rooting for the bison, and thankfully, it kept calm and wandered back off the path, up a steep hill, and hopefully flipped everyone the bird once it was hidden in the treeline.
So we checked out more pools and geysers.
We hit the very last Visitors Center/Museum on Lake Yellowstone before we exited the park. We dutifully dipped our toes in the cool, wild mountain water... and then I noticed two little children playing a game with a large, dead fish. That was about all I could handle for wildlife abuse for the day, so after Ryan secured us some cool drinks, I hopped in the driver's seat and churned us out of the park.
We were ambivalent about stopping for the night or pushing forward, but once we arrived in Cody, Wyoming, I discovered two things: 1, they have a brewery and 2, they have a rodeo.
Our first stop was Millstone Brewery, where we took stock of our sunburn situation and organized for the evening.
I found a cheap place to stay in town and secured tickets for the rodeo. We ate swiftly and rushed to our lodging, where we showered with gusto and zipped down the road in time for the rodeo to start.
Ryan was President of his Future Farmers of America chapter, but had never been to a rodeo. As someone who has been involved with horses since I was seven, I had seen most aspects of a rodeo, but never all put together as one show. The Cody Rodeo seems to be a nightly show put on for tourists, but with actual rodeo ranking... so basically, Rodeo Lite. It was a great first experience for Ryan.
As the sun set behind the hills, we watched racin', ropin', and bronc ridin', whooping and hollering and just having a great time. The crowd was international, and the announcer did a great job of getting everyone to represent their country. The Australians had an advantage- they took up an entire section!
Leaving the venue, Ryan admitted that he liked barrel racing the best. My favorite part was watching the rodeo clowns, rope riders, and herding dogs work together to make sure the cowboys and livestock were safely removed from the ring. My riding experience has been solo ringwork, so seeing all the parts of a team come together for every critter's benefit was really, really neat.
And then we didn't sleep that night because we were too keyed up, so the next day we drove through such beautiful scenery as this without even seeing it:
Thankfully, I had presence of mind to take pictures so I could think about it later.
We made two stops on this particular leg of the journey. Our first stop was at Ten Sleep Brewing. Ten Sleep is literally a goat barn in the middle of nowhere.
Here, we met a couple from Wisconsin who were like-minded Ales-and-Trails folks. We chatted and ate brats and talked about some of our favorite trails over the past several days and just had a great time bonding. See, the brewery scene isn't all about drinking beer and getting trashed. It's about delicious, culinary-level beer that brewers take time specifically crafting, and meeting fantastic people. We have met some truly, truly fantastic people.
Our next stop was a few hours later, at a Mexican restaurant called Los Compadres. Here I received the largest, cheesiest quesadilla I have ever encountered.
It was so amazing, I Yelped about it while I was eating it... and took over half of it with me.
After dinner, I decided to drive to give my bubbling sunburn a chance to cool, since the sun was on the passenger side of the van.
As if by magic, we were immediately hit with a raging hail storm. I safely guided Vincent under an overpass with a bevy of other vehicles, and we waited it out while listening to Aerosmith and praying for our windshield.
Thankfully, the storm was short, and we were onwards to Devils Tower.
Ryan has never seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind, so I made him look up the mashed potato scene as I drove on. As a result, we said "this means something. This is important" about every other minute, because we are really annoying people.
We camped in the shadow of Devils Tower, and I could feel it just radiating something special from a distance.
The next morning, we had a few hikes mapped out for us, and we needed to hurry before temperatures reached a predicted 105F. While most mornings we sleep in until we feel like getting up, on this particular morning, we were at the trailhead before 9am.
Literature is posted everywhere - in the museum, at the trailheads, on the map, every few feet on the trail- explaining that this is an extremely sacred Native American site. I took this picture before I read anything, as a tribute to Mr. Spielberg, and I feel a little guilty.
Upon reading the signs denoting the importance of Devils Tower to American Indian culture, I immediately switched course and treated it with utmost solemnity. And really, you should. There is a power there that I could feel coursing through the wind, swaying the trees, and steadying the earth beneath my feet. Even Ryan could feel that there was something very undefinable about Devils Tower.
And of course, there were people bouncing around on the boulders and yelling and fighting and throwing things and stepping where they shouldn't. I'm not sure why it is so hard to be respectful to the guidance that is provided.
Anyway.
Really, it was a very spiritually enriching trail, and I really wanted to linger, but the heat was rising, and we had another trail planned.
This one was unique because it took us through the prairie dog fields!
Here's a fun fact about prairie dogs: they carry fleas that can carry the plague. Yes, THE plague. The Black Death. Almost wiped out Europe. That plague. So, when I watched people trying to chase down and catch the prairie dogs, I just giggled to myself.
The walk was super, super fun. The dogs were actually quite social, and it's really interesting to watch them interact with each other. They've become somewhat used to people watching them, so we invented little dialogues for them to call out to each other as we passed.
"Roger! Hey Roger! Got some smelly ones coming in from the West! You've got to see this!"
"Elizabeth! I'm going to the store! Do we need more dirt?"
Midway through this particular trail, the sun came out full force, nearly melting us down a prairie dog hole. We took a short cut back to the van and hosed ourselves down with recycled cooler water.
In any case, it was time for us to head to our next state, so we had to do some crash planning for South Dakota!
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