Life Round Two: Part 3 - 2023 Spring Western US adventure

Part 1 - 2023 Spring Western US adventure

Part 2 - 2023 Spring Western US adventure - Nevada, Arizona, Utah

Wyoming & Montana

Leaving Dinosaur National Monument

Dinosaur National Monument was the last stop to make before making the decision of either continuing to head north or to turn left and head through the nothingness of the Nevada desert.

Putting a lot of miles on a vehicle while towing a trailer, even a smallish one like ours, can be pretty hard on it. There is a need to frequently monitor the all the moving parts of the truck as well as the trailer. Craig does a great job keeping up with the maintenance on the road but things still happen. On past trips we've dealt with cracked leaf springs, delaminated trailer shells, loose lug nuts, engine noise, refrigerator malfunctions,

So, with that in mind Craig was extra cautious when there was strange engine sounds coming from the truck. After some research and thinking we decided it would be best to continue the trip and actively monitor the engine noise. So far so good.

Animal encounters

Coyote
Pronghorn
Elk
Rattlesnake
Black bear
Yellow belly marmot

Wyoming - Montana

Flaming Gorge

From Dinosaur we headed to Flaming Gorge National Recreation area. As the names sounds, it's very red and it's a huge gorge. The areas elevation is about 7400 feet and covers about 42,000 acres with some beautiful sweeping views. There are plenty of forested areas and quite a bit of wildlife. Spring seemed to be just starting and you could still see the remnants of winters snow melt leaving some of the fields will shallow flooding.

We camped at Red Canyon Campground near the gorge and the Red Canyon Dam. The dam is holding back the Green river that flows to the Colorado. Our unofficial camp host was an adorable Yellow Belly Marmot about 100 feet away from where we camped. she/he had a home under a large flat cut stump that they used as a throne or lookout for part of the day. This adorable rotund little critter was very busy for most of the day. We enjoyed watching it gather mouths full of pine needles to pad an underground nest. At first, I thought it was strange that they decided to live right in the middle of the campground but then we realized that it was an easy trade off to avoid predators that are much more dangerous than a bunch of noisy humans.

Our camp host - A yellow belly marmot

View of the Green River from the Red Canyon visitor center trail

Sun setting at our camping area

Sinks Canyon, Lander Wyoming

A friend loaned us a book for rock climbing in Lander Wyoming so we decided go!

Sinks Canyon near Lander Wyoming sits at about 6,850 feet is, as you would expect for Wyoming, full of hiking, backpacking, mountain bike riding, and etc. The name comes from the Popo Agie river that runs through this canyon (created by a glacier). The river flows into an underground limestone cavern, named "the Sinks," and emerges a quarter-mile down the canyon in a pool named "the Rise." This was confirmed by adding dye to the water and waiting for it to come out at the other end. The dye was expected to take only a few minutes to show up at the rise but it actually took over two hours. It's unknown exactly why the water takes so long. Another interesting observation by researchers was that more water goes into the tunnel than comes out, but they don’t know where the other water goes...yet.

The landscape is interesting in that the glacier that carved this area left boulders large and small, strewn all of the hillsides of the area. The glacier also carved out the steep cliffs that now make up an excellent climbing area.

Rock Climbing Notes: Sinks Canyon area is also very well known for climbing. I’m told that there is a yearly international climbing event here in July. The climbs are on a series of cliff faces that require a steep approach up to the base of the climbs. Once up, there is a decently good trail that will take you to any climb you desire and there are over 300, mostly sport climbs rating from 5.6 to 5.14c (I did not notice anyone doing trad climbing in this area, but it's seems perfect for trad). I hiked up to scope out some climbs for us and was lucky enough to see some guys doing some of the 5.12+ climbs on an area called Moss Cave. The easiest climb on this “bulge” is a 5.12d. Very impressive to watch.

What’s interesting about the climbs here is: 1. All of the harder climbs are well bolted with quickdraws already attached. 2. The bolts seem very close together on all the climbs (no complaints from me). 3 I didn’t notice many multi-pitch climbs. 4. This place is finger pocket city (finger tendons beware).

Craig and I found some EASY 5.6-5.7 climbs on a wall called “More Fundy Than Junky”. Most of the climbs were no more than 35 meters but my favorite climb was a long route named “Zozo’s Dance” (FA Lightners 2015) that required a 60 meter rope and nine quickdraws.

Craig standing below several 5.12 climbs

wooly mule's ears

Oregon swallowtail

Shooting Star

pulsatilla flower

fringed puccoon

An argument for Yellowstone National Park

I know, I know, ug Yellowstone it is so touristy! But really, it's worth it. It would have been very easy to by-pass Yellowstone. Out of sheer laziness and not wanting to drive an hour out of our way, we decided to drive through Yellowstone. There were reasons to NOT visit Yellowstone. 1. We've been there before and 2. We are trying to stay away from the big parks and copious amounts of humans. We're so glad that we decided to visit because we were there at a time when we were lucky enough to capture many more geysers than we expected. We camped in a painfully overpriced campground the night before so that we could catch Old Faithful before the crowds and then walked for several miles on the boardwalk to see the other smaller geysers and boiling pools. There seemed to be a lot more activity than we remembered so we found ourselves captivated by it all. I tried hard to capture the amazing colors but you really need to see it in person. Oh, and there were tons of buffalo.

Old Faithful

Whitefish Montana

After visiting Yellowstone we made our way to Whitefish Montana where we stopped for a few days to stay in high style with Craigs friend since fourth grade, his partner, and their super happy pup. They showered us with amazing meals and the finest accommodations. We shopped and hiked and had a great time just hanging out and catching up.

Glacier National Park, Going-To-The-Sun-Road

The most memorable part of the trip was a bike ride up the "Going-To-The-Sun-Road in Glacier National Park. This road is closed to traffic part of the year for plowing but is open to bicyclists. Six of us started up the hill early in the morning to beat the Memorial day crowds. We all rode up up and up a 2,022 ft elevation gain and a total of 24 miles round trip. What an amazing ride with amazing friends. The scenery was stunning at every turn and it was the perfect bike riding temperature. By the time we made it to a good turn around point, the weather had turned wet making the ride down a little challenging. It rained pretty hard on the way down and we were all soaked by the time we made it to the bottom.

The girls waiting on the boys