Just been wandering around the last few days. Getting mail forwarded to Cody so have to wait around for that to show up. Drove up through Grand Teton National Park and through the 1988 fire in Yellowstone National Park. Not very pretty.
In Cody I wanted to go to the big museum, actually 5 museums under one roof but they wanted $15 for admission, too much for me. Checked out the Chief Joseph National Scenic Drive. Mostly semi-arid mountains and valleys. It ends at US-212, the Beartooth Highway. This is mostly alpine mountains and lakes. I'll be returning there to hike some of the Beartooth trails.
On the far side of the Beartooth mountains towards Red Lodge I found one of the prettiest camp sites I've seen so far. Went over a small bridge across very big and strong class II rapids and turned left into a little cul-de-sac. A second river also with big and strong class II rapids met the first right there where I camped. I had the roar of both rapids in my ears all night and it put me right to sleep.
Went over to see what Big Horn Canyon and Big Horn National Recreation Area were all about. Much like Lake Powell at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Utah but on a much, much smaller scale and no where near as brilliant. Aside from boating and some wild horse nearby, not much else to offer.
It was too hot and arid and no shade over there so I ended up driving down here to the Big Horn National Forest. Lost my reading glasses somewhere along the way so that became the first order of business. Got up in the morning and moved the truck to get the sun out of the way and ran over one of the water jugs. Getting a new one became the second order of the day. When I ran over the water jug I pulled the muffler loose from the exhaust pipe so it became the third, but most important item or the day.
Spent most of the day in Sheridan waiting for them to get to my muffler, a 10 minute job. Temperatures in the 100's. Was glad to get out of there and back to the mountains.
07/10/02Hiking Saw Mill Lakes Trail (2 miles plus circling lakes):
Bad night. Found a camp site and was already asleep when the cows started. Didn't see any when I pulled in but they wandered in from where ever they were to a nearby meadow. The cows lowed and the calves bawled much of the night.
Drove to the Twin Lakes Picnic Area, way down FR-26 looking for the Coney Lakes Trailhead. Saw a herd of 8 moose way off across a large meadow. Binoculars showed at least 5 of the 8 had small to medium sized antlers. Maybe they were all young males hanging out together after being driven off by a dominant male. I dunno. Never saw that many moose together before, certainly not males.
Lots of big signs around but none for the trailhead. Made a false start down to Coney Creek and then another up a blocked off service road. Here I found a dam and presumably Coney Lake. A trail was supposed to lead to a couple other lakes farther on but no sign.
Coming into the picnic area I had seen a small sign for the Saw Mill Lakes Trail so did that instead. This is a short trail that leads across a small, rocky ridge with Coney Creek cascading along beside it for a while.
After a mile I got my first glimpse of the larger of two Saw Mill Lakes, somewhere between 5-10 acres. Lost of heavily forested hills and many lily pads trying to burst forth in yellow blooms. The smaller of the two lakes, 2-3 acres is a miniature of the first one with forested hills and lily pads. I followed the trail around the smaller lake and then began climbing the 300 feet the trail had dropped.
07/12/02:
Forecasts of 105 for the next couple of days. Went looking for some trailheads a few miles away. US-14 dropped 1000-2000 very quickly and I changed my mind in a hurry. With those kind of temperatures I wanted as much elevation as possible.
The only other hiking options I had was to go back to the Coney Lakes area but that was 20 miles of bad road. I went part way to the where I had camped last night. That was a pretty nice place and had a good breeze coming through it. At 8000 feet or so I thought I could last the next couple of days there OK.