Rocky Mountains and Basins Of Northern Wyoming

TransAmerica Trek Days 32-39

I departed Yellowstone a week ago via the East Entrance Road which crosses the Absaroka Mtns - a rugged sub-range of the Rockies - via the Sylvan Pass. This is the road where I saw the young grizzly last week. Absaroka Mtns are primarily volcanic in origin and contain breccias (a type of conglomerate). At the Sylvan Pass there was a large scree field where I saw and heard two marmots for the first time.

The eastern descent followed the Shoshone River all the way down to Cody, WY, on the western edge of the Big Horn Basin. Before leaving the Absaroka Mtns, I spent the night at Rex Hale Campground at 6,100 ft msl - my favorite camp site of the trip so far. I bathed in the Shoshone River in the morning and it was the coldest water yet on this Trip - close to the snowfields.

View from my campsite at Rex Hale CG. Shoshone River is below the trees in foreground

Rex Hale camp site

N. Fork Shoshone River downslope from Rex Hole CG

Cody is a destination town and home of the largest rodeo in the world. I stayed in the tent area of Ponderosa Campground and it is full of charm - established 90 years ago. I took my 4th REST day in Cody so I could have 2 days to explore the Buffalo Bill Center of the West - a Smithsonian Affiliate. The Center is a complex of 5 museums and I spent most of my 2 days in the Plains Indians Museum and the Draper Museum of Natural History. It’s sobering to be reminded of the genocide carried out by the U.S. military and frontier citizens invading the homelands of the indigenous cultures of North America.

I’m bewildered by the reality that we slaughtered 60 million bison - nearly to the point of extinction - with the primary purpose of decimating the Plains Indians.

I hadn’t realized when I chose the TransAmerica route that I’m riding that I would follow nearly the entire 1,200-mile route of the Nez Perce National Historic Trail.

The first night in Cody, I attended my first-ever big rodeo - the Cody Nite Rodeo - which is held every night from June 1 to Aug 31. This year is the 89th anniversary of the Nite Rodeo - classic Americana. In addition to bull and bronco riding, 50 children 12 y/o and younger entered the arena with the goal of grabbing one of the red ribbons off one of the two calves. My favorite event was the barrel horse riding which is a finesse event performed by women only.

Children chasing the calves

Barrel Racing at the Cody Rodeo

Contemporary Native American artist - see photo below

After crossing the Big Horn Basin I passed through Ten Sleep - a town famous for its cowboy culture and also for its mountaineers and rock climbers. The ride from Ten Sleep up and over the Powder River Pass in the southern Big Horn Mountains was the highest and biggest climb of my trip: pass summit at 9,666 feet msl and a total ascent of of 6,000 feet. The were a a number of road signs pointing out the geology including one calling out granitic gneiss at 3 billlion years old!!

My morning bath and jacuzzi on Ten Sleep Creek

Ten Sleep Canyon is primarily limestone and was carved by glaciers within the last 250,000 years.

Climbing through Ten Sleep Canyon - someone should pinch me.

Powder River Pass summit - I’m on top of the world.

The Eastern Slope of the Big Horn Mtns

The descent down the eastern slope of the Big Horns was spectacular and took me through Buffalo at the edge of the Powder River Basin. The basin is steeped in cattle ranching and there are vast fields of alfalfa and hay grain crops. There are also natural gas wells along old U.S. Hwy 16, and Dillon, WY, and vicinity produces 40 percent of American coal. Yesterday the governor Wyoming and a congressional delegation attended a ribbon cutting for the first new coal mine to open in Wyoming in decades - the operator also intends to mine rare Earth minerals at this location near Ranchester, WY.

Big Horn River

Sagebrush Steppe biome of the Powder River Basin

Irrigating alfalfa

Two nights ago I slept in the tent camping portion of the Leiter Bar/Cafe/General Store/Cabins/RV park in Lieter - population 4 - at a junction on the old U.S. Hwy 16.

Today, I’m heading towards Devil’s Tower, WY, and after that I’ll enter the Black Hills of South Dakota.