Cows…and Fluffy Cows
Wyoming and South Dakota
Day Five
Thursday, July 2, 2020
Middle Fork Campground
Bighorn National Forest
The Morning I Lost the Key to the Car
We woke up early so we could go for a hike. We were in the process of packing up the car when I realized that I could not find the key fob anywhere. I just had it to get into the car, so where the heck could it have gone? I retraced my steps of filling water bottles, getting out the breakfast, and pulling out the clothes for the day. Nothing.
We took everything out of the back end, testing the door locks from inside as we put the items back. The doors would not lock, but the engine would start, which meant the key fob was inside the CRV somewhere…but not in the back end. At least I didn’t actually lose the only key to a rental car. Technically, I could drive it, but we wouldn’t be able to lock it, so we needed to find that key before we left.
I had searched all around the cooler a bazillion times where I thought I had set it down, but I decided to empty the backseat to be sure. As soon as I pulled the cooler out, there it was! It had slid down the back of the seat and somehow ended up underneath the cooler. We had just killed an hour searching for it.
Perhaps we should’ve slept in.
With disaster averted, we set off to find a spot to hike. We tried to hike from our campground on an ATV trail, but without any trees, it didn’t look very interesting. Our next option was a trail near the Circle Park Campground.
The gravel road to the campground was in good shape for the first couple miles. We had driven on it the night before when we went for a drive, but the part to get down into the campground seemed a little sketchy at the time. We couldn’t see over the hill or past the trees, plus the sky was filled with dark clouds, so we had turned around.
When we came back in the daylight, it looked a lot less sketchy and another car drove out as we approached. I figured that if they could make it up the hill, we could too. As it turned out, it wasn’t as bad as it looked and the campground was in a very pretty spot surrounded by a meadow, with the mountains in the background.
It looked like the kind of place moose would hang out, but no moose were hanging out while we were there. A moose siting on this trip was just not meant to be.
Instead, we saw cows. A herd of black cows stared at us from the grass along the side of the road. They were pretty much the only critters we saw that week, so we stopped for a few pictures. We can see cows closer to home, but not usually this close to the road.
Cloud Peak Wilderness
We found the Circle Park Trailhead, which had a registration box for wilderness permits. We’ve never hiked anywhere that required a permit, but we were excited to finally have a day that was warm enough for a hike.
I’m not sure what we had expected from this trail, but we just wanted to see what we could see and then turn around. The dirt trail quickly turned more rocky as we climbed. It was probably a good thing we couldn’t see anything but trees because I think we spent most of our time watching where we stepped. We were passed by backpackers, who probably thought we didn’t know what we were doing. They were probably right, but we were just happy to be able to hike somewhere.
We hiked about 3/4 of a mile and decided that it was time to turn around. We hadn’t seen anything but trees the entire time. We were hiking at over 8000 feet of elevation and climbing, which was exhausting for our flatlander selves. We had also wasted an hour of our morning, so we had less time for hiking than originally planned. We needed to be getting on the road if we were going to camp in the Black Hills that night. Pretty sure lunch was also back at the car…all good reasons to turn around. It was fun while it lasted!
Side note: As it turned out, if we had gone a half mile or so further, we could’ve seen a lake. I think we probably would’ve needed to climb another couple hundred feet in elevation to see it, though. Here’s a track of our route.
On the Road Again…
With one last ditch effort of hiking in the mountains done, and lunch ready to go, we hit the road. It was time to head for home. We took I90 back to Sundance and then took Highway 585 to Highway 85 into the Black Hills. I wanted to try out a different campground in the Black Hills so we went in search of Boxelder Forks Campground. The weeds were tall and the bugs were many, so we decided to go back to Horsethief Campground that we had camped at in 2017.
Getting there was easier said than done with roads that wind around the Black Hills. I’m not sure where we went, but we found ourselves on miles of gravel roads. Eventually, we reached a highway that we could identify on a map so we could continue on our way.
It took us three hours from the time we crossed the South Dakota border until we reached Horsethief Lake and when we arrived, the campground was full. A sheriff deputy was parked across the road that went toward Mount Rushmore. The campground host was not happy about the crowds and protesters that had come for the Fourth of July fireworks that would be happening the next day at the monument. I had forgot about that bit of craziness happening during a pandemic and definitely did not want to be anywhere near there with more people rolling in.
The campground host offered us one remaining site at the French Creek Horse Camp, but we decided to head down to Elk Mountain Campground at Wind Cave instead.
Elk Mountain Campground
It was after sunset when we arrived at Wind Cave. We selected an open campsite on the main loop and set up the tent. We soon realized that this spot was going to be way too slanted for sleeping in a tent, so we took a walk to see if any of the other open sites would be better. There was one not too far down on the other side of the road that we decided would be better. I’m not sure what we were thinking at the time, but we didn’t want to take the tent down and put it back up again, so we each grabbed a corner and the tarp and dragged our eleven foot tent down and across the road to the other campsite.
We were finally all settled in for the night, ready to go to sleep, when a group in an RV chose the campsite directly across from us. They weren’t quiet about getting themselves set up either. I’m not sure how long they were slamming their camper door, but eventually, they stayed inside and we were able to get to sleep. What a long day for not going very far!
Day Six
Friday, July 3, 2020
Elk Mountain Campground
Wind Cave National Park
Tent camping in July is hot and humid so we were up and out of the tent early that morning. I’m always impressed by the amount of time it takes us to pack up and go. The above tent picture was taken at 6:34am. I usually take tent pictures while still in my pajamas so I don’t forget when we get busy, plus the kids usually take the tent stakes out while I’m getting dressed and they remove the rainfly while I’m getting my stuff inside the tent ready to haul out. We have a system.
Anyway, we were all packed up and ready to hit the road at 7:14am.
Morning Bison Jam
We made it to the highway and were greeted by a herd of bison, who were just casually hanging out by the road. There were so many baby bison! We stopped and watched them for a while because they weren’t moving. At the time, I did not know that you were supposed to just drive slowly through them and they would move out of the way, as if cars were like just another bison to them.
We finally made it out of one bison jam and soon found ourselves in another. We had decided to take Highway 87 north through the Black Hills. It’s a pretty drive, but definitely not the fastest route. There were so many bison and they would just walk past the car like we weren’t even there. I don’t know how long we sat there before another vehicle came along and nudged them to move along.
Don’t Pet the Fluffy Cows!
This big fella liked our car. He inspected the front bumper and also stopped at the front tire, probably licking minerals off of it, like a salt lick. I could’ve reached out and touched him as he lumbered past us. That’s how close he was! I don’t know how bison fur actually feels, but it looks a little like sherpa, so I resisted the urge to touch him. I had also rolled up the window before his head was anywhere near it.
I have no idea what folks are thinking when they get out of their cars to get pictures with these wild animals. I wondered if we were even safe sitting so close to them in the car! I don’t think they have the best vision, though, so maybe they thought our car was one of them.
Home Sweet Home
The rest of the drive home was not nearly as exciting as the morning had been. We got home and unloaded the car, cleaned it up, and returned it to the rental place.
Our First Camp Kitchen
Before I close out this trip report, I found these pictures of our first rendition of a “camp kitchen” and wanted to share what we brought along for this trip. The five gallon pail held all of the stuff except for the pot, pan, and camp stove, which is why I eventually switched to a different setup that could hold everything. I had a square plastic box down in the bottom of it to create spots that would hold skinny things up along the sides of the bucket. Then the plates and whatnot went into the middle.
We had always been toting this stuff around on road trips, in case of an emergency. The plan was that we could stop for groceries to cook something like a hobo dinner in the aluminum foil if we had to. We never used any of it until this trip. If I could’ve put a pot and pan in the bucket, I’d probably still be using it because it was super compact.
Road Trip Wrap-Up
This road trip was such different experience from our past road trips. I’m not sure that we would’ve ever went on a mountain-only trip if it hadn’t been for needing a destination closer to home. We love the desert, but the mountains were beautiful for something different. We didn’t get to try any local restaurants, not that we saw many of those on our route, but the camp cooking was pretty tasty! I definitely would not have taken up camp cooking if it hadn’t been a necessity. It may be cheaper, but prepping for cooking on the road is a lot of work! We never did use our porta-potty setup. All of the campgrounds had vault toilets that were being cleaned every couple of hours so they seemed safe enough to use instead.
This was a cheaper trip, even though I added the cost of a rental car for a week. The CRV got much better gas mileage than our Durango did, so that offset the rental cost enough to make it worthwhile. Overall, this was a great little road trip to experiment with a bunch of different things we had not done before and they all worked out great!
Road Trip Itinerary
Day One: Drive to the Bighorns, Camp at South Fork Campground
Day Two: Tie Hack Lake, Tensleep Canyon, Castle Gardens, Boulder Park Campground
Day Three: Bighorn National Recreation Area, Shell Canyon, Shell Creek Campground
Day Four: Medicine Wheel Scenic Byway, Middle Fork Campground
Day Five: Circle Park Trail, Drive to the Black Hills, Elk Mountain Campground