Another western states tour planned in June/July

[dave54]

~4 weeks. Ruby Mountains, Bighorn Mountains, Theodore Roosevelt NP (both parts), the CM Russell Museum in Great Falls, then back home.
First time for us to each of these.
Any suggestions as must sees?

The Medicine Wheel in the Bighorns is on the list (America's Stonehenge). Not sure how much snow we will encounter in the Rubies in late June. Some trails may be dicey.

Just couldn't work in extending the trip to Voyageur NP/Boundary Waters. That is still on my bucket list.

[wildhiker]

You will probably encounter significant snow in the Ruby Mountains in late June. The snowpack is Nevada is more than 200% of normal, including the individual sensors in the Ruby Mountains. I hiked around from the end of Lamoille Canyon the first few days of July 1971 - lots of snow. That was also a heavy snow year, but not as much as this year.

[Wandering Daisy]

https://www.highsierratopix.com/communi ... 770#p44770

This a trip I did in 2011, end of June. It was also a high snow year. The photos sort of show up but I can post them here again if not.

I did two day-hikes; Lamoille Canyon was very snowy, lakes still frozen, Thompson Canyon had less snow and wonderful wildflowers.

[dave54]

As expected, Ruby's are mostly snowbound. 12 foot snow berm about a mile past Thomas Campground in Lamoille Cyn. Can't even get to roads end. Thomas Cyn trail still has a lot of snow after the first mile. However, the wildflowers are incredible and the waterfalls along the trail are raging.
The media made the crickets sound like a cloud over the entire city of Elko. Hit and miss, with a swarm for a few hundred yards then nothing for a couple miles. Not a problem other than some guts in the wheelwells.

[Troutdog 59]

Nice and thanks for the update. Going to be heading to Lamoille Canyon in August this year.

[Wandering Daisy]

Thanks for the report on the Ruby Mountains. Wyoming snowpack is a bit over normal (but nothing like California and Nevada), but a wet monsoonal spring. I tentatively am planning on going to the Wind Rivers again this year, but not until later in July. Good luck on your trip(s) in the Bighorns! The road over the Beartooths and drop to Cody is really amazing but may be too much out of your way.

[dave54]

Thanks for the report on the Ruby Mountains. Wyoming snowpack is a bit over normal (but nothing like California and Nevada), but a wet monsoonal spring. I tentatively am planning on going to the Wind Rivers again this year, but not until later in July. Good luck on your trip(s) in the Bighorns! The road over the Beartooths and drop to Cody is really amazing but may be too much out of your way.

Been on the Beartooth and Chief Joseph highways many years ago. Yeah, in the top ten scenic roads in America.
Currently stuck in Sheridan waiting for the rain to stop. Took in a couple museums, shopping, laundry.
Trails are reportedly a quagmire. Medicine Wheel is accessible but muddy.

[dave54]

Finishing up the trip report.

My last post was waiting out the rain in Sheridan. It did finally clear up enough we could at least drive around the Bighorns and sightsee. Getting off the paved roads was risky. We tried to drive some forest roads and turned around. Everything was deep mud. The Forest Service took the unprecedented step of closing entire sections of the forest due to the rain. The roads were impassable and trying to drive them would destroy the roadbed. So we settled on the paved scenic highways 14, 14A, and 16. Lots of wildlife were out and about, and we saw more moose than we ever have before. One unpaved road that is somewhat publicized is Crazy Woman Canyon (two stories behind the name. Both are colorful). Forest Road 33. Was not one of the closed roads. Descends a narrow canyon with near vertical walls in areas. The single lane road (barely single lane in places) has numerous signs about trailers and RVs not advised, and they were not kidding. A couple of spots a tall van would scrape. Talus caves where slabs have broken off the canyon wall and lodged in the narrow slot above you, forming a tunnel. Eventually opens up to the valley at the east base of the mountains.

Next part of our trip was visiting the Little Bighorn Battlefield. It is only about 70 miles north of Sheridan. I had read much of the battle and the events leading up to it. Walking the actual sites puts a whole different perspective on it. Very interesting.

On to the main reason for our trip – Theodore Roosevelt NP. The Park has three sections – South Unit in Medora, right off Interstate 94, North Unit, and Elkhorn Ranch. Which was Roosevelt’s home and ranch headquarters. The Elkhorn Ranch building was destroyed by fire and only the foundation and site is left. Access is only by many miles of unpaved road. We passed on visiting. The town of Medora is a fun little town. Population is listed as 121, but it sure seems larger. Lots of restaurants and shops, caters to the tourist trade. It had a massive three day Independence Day celebration that would put a larger city to shame – reenactments, classic car show, big parade, outdoor concert, etc. Really fun. The South Unit of the Park has lots of wildlife, with large prairie dog towns right along the road. Fun to watch their antics as they scurry and play. Bison are common throughout the Park, with sometimes refusal to move off the road, making you wait until they are good and ready to let you pass. The terrain is flat top plateaus that were covered in wildflowers, steep incised slopes, and river/creek bottoms of cottonwoods and ash trees. The north slopes of the canyon walls are thick forests of juniper. The south slopes are barren with colorful bands of soil strata. The dominant soil in the area is bentonite clay, and is slipperier than snake snot when wet. The Park Service warns about hiking when the soils are wet. The trails between the plateau and valley bottoms seem to go straight up and down the slopes. The soil also erodes easily, and the trail tread was often a 3-4 foot deep trench. The trails on flat ground were often overgrown with the prairie vegetation. It is easy to walk through, but you cannot always see exactly what is on the ground where you step. Remember the bison I mentioned? Their calling cards were hidden by the grasses and flowers, and we stepped right in very fresh ones.

One hike I highly recommend in the South Unit is the Petrified Forest Loop. It is several miles of unpaved forest road to the trailhead (adjacent to the Park is the Little Missouri National Grassland, administered by the Forest Service). The roads were well maintained and well signed. The NPS gives warnings about the rough road and hard to follow, etc. A decent car and a driver already used to typical forest roads will have no problems. The two petrified forest sites are accessible by a 3 mile trail, and you can make a longer loop if you wish. Large logs and stumps of petrified trees are strewn about, some up to 4 feet in diameter. One section of the trail is along the plateau top. The area is what is called mixed-grass prairie, as the Park is in the zone where the Shortgrass and Tallgrass prairies overlap. The plant biodiversity is amazing, one Park display said there are over 2000 species of plants there. Wildflowers of every color as far as the eye can see in every direction, although yellow goldenrod dominated. Not a lick of shade anywhere along this section. The prairie grasses are all only 1-2 feet tall. Rolling waves of green and flowers to the horizon in a 360 circle
We also wanted to hike the Painted Canyon Trail. It starts at a second visitor center, co-located at a highway rest area along I-94. We were disappointed in the trail. It had rained the night before, and now the day was hot and muggy. The trail starts at the visitor center, heads east along the plateau rim for ¾ mile, then drops more or less straight down the canyon wall. It rapidly became difficult to walk in, as the clay soil was still wet from the rain. As we descended we could see the so-called ‘Painted Canyon’, and did not look very spectacular to us. Near the bottom, a stream crossing with steep bank had to be negotiated. I managed to somehow make it with no mishap. Patty, however, face-planted right in the gooey sticky clay bank. Clambering to her feet, she slipped and fell on her bottom in the stream. I successfully descended the bank to assist her with no mishap on my part. I doubt my barely concealed chuckling at her comical appearance helped. That was it! She was done! She wanted to turn around and head right back to our truck. Being the good (and smart) husband, I did not contest her wishes. I know when I am outvoted one to one. Back at the Visitor Center she was quite the center of attention with her spectral appearance, covered in gray mud. She was in the lady’s restroom quite awhile attempting to clean up. I wisely just grabbed a shady picnic table and set up our lunch cooler, and avoided any comments when she returned. While were eating lunch a large herd of bison, maybe 100 animals, trotted through the parking area, between cars and RVs and forcing traffic to stop.

On to the North Unit.

We stayed in Watford City ND, 15 miles from the North Unit entrance. It was now warm, bordering hot. Since we travel with our dogs and cats, we do not want to leave them in the RV in hot weather without the AC. So we opted for a full hookup park with electricity. Fortunately, the city of Watford City is an oil boom town and awash in revenue. All the private RV campgrounds are full with long-term oilfield workers. So the city built a tourist RV campground for transients like us. Full hookups in a shady grassy park next to a creek. A really nice and pleasant place to camp. The North Unit does not seem to have the same amount of wildlife, but IMHO the scenery is better. It is also lesser used and a lot less traffic on the roads. We saw maybe 3-4 other cars on the road the first day.

First hike was from roads end scenic overlook to a point on the rim called Sperati Point. The trail continues on past this point, descends the bluff to the Little Missouri River, and continues to become the main backcountry trail in the North Unit. In either section of the Park, it would be hard to put together a backpacking trip of more than 3-4 days. The Park is not that big. Only a couple of longer trails in each unit. However, people have, and a few backpacking trip reports do exist on the internet.

The Sperati Point trail follows the flat plateau to where the main trail descends, through more flowered prairie grasses. We stayed quite a while at the Point, looking at the sweeping bend in the Little Missouri River below us and the cottonwood forest filling the bottomland floodplain. Quite a spectacular view. Back at the trailhead we ate lunch at the scenic overlook. A lone bison bull wandered through the picnic area while we ate. We considered our options of what to do if he came too close to us. Duck under the concrete table and let him sample our food? Quickly grab our stuff and maintain distance? Fortunately, he maintained his distance from us, so no action on our part was necessary.

The Cannonball Concretions are very interesting geological oddity. The turnout and site are right along the main Park road. The Concretions are almost perfectly spherical smooth rocks embedded in the bluff wall. According to the display, geologists are not quite sure how they form. You can see some broken ones, and are formed in layers like a pearl is formed. Does mineral-laden water trickle down finally depositing the mineral layers around some nucleus pebble?

The next day we decided to hike one of the more popular trails – the Caprock Coulee Trail. All the trail writeups I researched said to hike the loop counterclockwise. So we did. The first 0.8 mile is a nature trail with a trail brochure and interpretive signs along the way. The Visitor Center had one copy of the brochure left, so the NPS staff let us photograph it to my phone. Why the NPS does not use QR codes in the visitor centers to simply download PDFs of brochures is another discussion. Local high school students are always looking for senior projects. Converting the numerous brochures and handouts to PDFs is not hard, and could placed on the Park website for downloading. C’mon, NPS – join the 21st century and save a fortune on printing costs while ending the problem of no brochures at the trailhead kiosks! Enough rant. Back to the trail.

The Caprock Coulee Trail gradually ascends a large canyon – the Caprock Coulee – through a riparian bottomland. Shady and follows a small stream. It turns and makes a short but steep ascent to the plateau top. Upon reaching the top, we were stunned by the grandeur of the view. A sweeping panorama of the entire badlands, with the stunning banded layers and intricate eroded shapes. Very reminiscent of the overlooks at the Grand Canyon, except these colors were more grays and browns than red and orange. After several minutes of photographs, and attempts at 360 panoramic photos (I never quite got the knack of holding the camera still enough while making a smooth rotation), we continued. The trail crosses the Park road at a picnic area and scenic overlook. Ate lunch at the old CCC cabin. Then continued. The trail is now on the south side of the Park road and along the rim of the Little Missouri River. The trail got a bit harder with more short sections of steep up and down, on a narrow ridge in places, or adjacent to steep drop-offs, then finally makes a steep lengthy descent back to the parking area and trailhead. The soil erosion on this section is quite severe, and the descent was hard. We could see the ascent would even be harder. Now we understood why the writeups suggested going counterclockwise. Doing this trail the other way would involve a difficult steep ascent to start, almost requiring hands to scramble in places.
All in all, we are glad we went to TRNP. I am not sure I would suggest it as a destination of itself. It is worth visiting if in the area, or as part of a longer loop like we did.

The next day was a day I had been dreading. The next stop was Great Falls, Montana, as I had long wanted to visit the CM Russel Museum and the western art collection. That was too far for one day, along state and local highways. No interstates unless we backtracked to Medora and took I-94 across Montana. That would be too many miles out of the way, so I plodded on straight across. Our destination for the day was Lewistown, MT – 320 miles. Little did I know when planning the route most of those miles would be under construction. Not only was it mostly narrow two lane local and state roads, large sections were tore up with traffic control and long waits for the pilot car. This is also a very empty part of Montana with few services far between. Driving an RV long distances is not difficult, but is more tiring than driving a passenger car. And local roads are more tiresome than interstates. I was pretty beat up when we got to Lewistown. Camp that night was a Kiwanis Club maintained campground with no hookups. The site was between the highway and the airport, so it was not absolute quiet. But the price is right, a donation of what you feel is fair (we gave $20). We were both so tired that night dinner was a couple of deli sandwiches from the supermarket across the street.

The next day was a short hop into Great Falls. The Russel Museum is great. We spent the day exploring the galleries and soaking in his mastery of the art form. I have always liked his art. His paintings tell an entire story. Just standing in front of the painting you can smell the forest and plains, the cattle and wildlife, hear the sounds, and feel the weather. Some of it is a romanticized depiction of a life that was really hard and dangerous, but you still resonate with the painting.

Finished the day with a visit to Walmart and a supermarket. Restock the larder.

On to next stop – Idaho Falls. A long ways, but all interstate highway, good weather, and surprisingly light traffic. Patty wanted to spend a few days in Idaho Falls. She never really explained why, we do not know anyone there. We had passed through the city on the way to Yellowstone on other trips, but never really thought of it as a place to stay for a while. However, I was outvoted one to one again. Looking for things to do we decided to spend a day on a ‘scenic drive’ mentioned in a local tourism brochure. OK, I admit I was wrong. It seems there is a lot to do in the area besides pass through on the way to Yellowstone. The scenic route went through some picturesque small farm towns, then into the foothiils, and finally ascended into Targhee National Forest. Upper and Lower Mesa Falls are in a developed recreation area managed by the Forest Service. Two very large waterfalls worthy of a visit. The route ends up at Island Park, where most readers of this remember as gas stop on the way to West Yellowstone.

The next day we rode bikes on a most excellent network of paved biketrails along the Snake River right through the middle of the city. Dinner was at a restaurant called Jakers, which is a local Idaho chain. Best steak I have eaten in a long time! Very flavorful and so tender!

Another drudge day driving. Actually two days. Idaho Falls to Elko, Elko to home. Both very long days. Got held up in traffic for a couple hours on Highway 93 south of Jackpot NV – fatal traffic accident blocked both lanes. Motorcycle versus car and did not end well for either.
Still had Mormon Crickets in Elko and along I-80 to home. Hot weather. 5 weeks, 4400 miles total

So we are at home now, recovering, and getting the RV ready for the next trip – with the granddaughters for week camped near Lake Tahoe. Possibly back to Lava Beds National Monument in the fall, and some local boondocking.