Day 3: hiking the bighorns

up early to try to make the most of the day. Still didn’t break camp until a couple hours after I was up as some members like to sleep longer than others. No matter- we set off for misty mon lake by 7:45 which was good enough. The scenery here is outstanding. Rocky Mountains with less than 10% the people. The trail wavered between alpine meadows and pine forests with consistent views of a stream and snowy peaks on all sides.

We did Ford the stream that held us back yesterday. I went barefoot to save getting my boots wet, Kate brought her Chacos. It was chilly and rocky for sure, but we got through it both ways alright. The destination is a string of mountain lakes. Helen was the biggest and first and had a few groups camping on it. There was actually a decent amount of snow to navigate here and there as we traversed the shire towards the path for Marion lake. This was smaller and had no one at it. Pretty quickly, the trees started to fade and we soon reached misty moon. It was amazing. Mountains on all sides with cloud peak looming off the the north east. A little bit of a bummer we didn’t take a run at it, but it’ll be there next trip and this is certainly a place worth returning to.

Back in the car, we wound our way back down the gravel road and headed west again on 16. Barely touched the gas on the way back down the pass toward the town of tensleep. The canyon was gorgeous as well. Lots of cars pulled over and we couldn’t figure out why as it didn’t look like people were out taking pictures, until we realized they were all rock climbers. Must be a hot spot.

Tensleep has 260 people in it on the edge of the mountains and near desert. I joked that if there was a brewery, we were stopping. Amazingly enough, I soon saw a sign for a brewery on the edge of town. Wow- right up there with the most desolate breweries I have ever seen. They’ve actually been open 5 years and brewed good beer.

Landed in graybull, wy for the night at a historic hotel downtown. A snap judgement as we pulled over, went in, asked how much it was (65$) and went for it. Ate at a Mexican joint across the street for dinner, which was owned by first generation immigrants and subsequently quite good.

Not a bad day.