Welcome March & Ro’s 1st out-of-strate road trip – Wyoming!
Honestly, Plan A was to find buffalo. Ever since I re-watched ‘Dances with Wolves’ a couple weeks back, I’ve had ‘tatanka’ on the brain. After research, I discovered buffalo don’t ‘free range’ during the winter months — so I settled on a buffalo ‘statue’ in Northern Co near the WY border. That statue turned out to be a wooden billboard with a buffalo painted on one side — not exactly what I was thinking 🙁
https://www.roadsideamerica. com/tip/28546 (fake Buffalo statue)
Plan B – hike in Wyoming, the Cowboy State. Wyoming’s famous natural wonders — Grand Tetons & Yellowstone — are 8 hours away (the West is HUGE). Settled on Curt Gowdy State Park — 24 miles from Cheyenne, 24 miles from Laramie. On the drive west from Cheyenne, passed a large wind farm — LOVE these things. Not sure how much electricity is actually generated but LOVE these all-white spinning pinwheels in seemingly open, desolate places.
Arrive at Curt Gowdy and no one is there — crazy, huh? Park is open but no rangers, no hikers, no car/truck of any kind. Figured it out at Ro’s first potty break — 70 (yeah 70) MPH wind gusts. I couldn’t push open my car door so had to slide out the passenger side. Plan C — we drive to the other side of the mountain near Crystal Lake Reservoir. Windy but much more do-able…and no snow. It’s like we did 2 separate hikes this day — New Mexico-like rock formations & arid conditions in the sun, snowy hike and ice-covered lakes in the shade.
In typical ‘go big or go home’ style, Ro & I started on the park’s ‘Cliffhanger’ trail, traversed 3 or 4 intersecting trails, until we worked our way completely around the reservoir. 22 miles — by far our longest hike to date. Not my choice really. 2 map misreads on my part — oops, still learning 🙂 And because of those misreads, we trail ran 4 miles of our downhill return — no rangers, no bodies (except maybe the femur bone Ro found) and the sun read approx 1 or 2pm. [No cell phone since Feb 15th so taken up reading sun positions to avoid sunset ‘in the wild’ disasters.]
Longest day out to date — no buffalo and visited a state [where] I will never choose to live — but 22 miles? ROCKSTAR hike!
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