Day Two
Monday, June 29, 2020
Bighorn National Forest
We slept in. The birdies started chirping at 4:15am, but I managed to fall back asleep and the kids slept through the ruckus. When we finally decided to get up, it was almost 10am. Our tent felt cozy in the mountains, compared to the oven it would’ve been by 10am in the desert! We packed up, ate breakfast, and decided to find out what was down the trail that started at the end of the tent area.
What a beautiful hike! We walked along the creek the whole way. We thought about turning around a couple times but kept deciding to go just a little bit further. Our persistence paid off because the trail ended with a beautiful lake!
This was such a beautiful trail, and we had it all to ourselves! I’ve added the track and stats from the hike.
Cloud Peak Scenic Byway
After an almost two mile hike at 7500 feet of elevation, when we’re used to living at 1550 feet, we were ready for a drive! Highway 16 is called the Cloud Peak Skyway Scenic Byway. The drive is 47 miles from Buffalo in the east to Ten Sleep in the west and we started from several miles into the drive at South Fork Campground. We enjoyed a leisurely afternoon of stopping at the overlooks for views of the mountains.
Tensleep Canyon
The drive through Tensleep Canyon was possibly my favorite drive of the whole trip! The views of the canyon changed around every curve in the road until we were all the way down to the town of Ten Sleep. Along the way, we saw rock climbers clinging to the canyon walls. They look like tiny bugs from so far away!
Side Note: I remember seeing the signs for the Saltlick Trailhead after we came out of the canyon, but we didn’t stop to find out what the trail looked like. I looked it up after we got home and it looks like a beautiful little trail that is on my to-do list for someday when we go this way again.
Castle Gardens Scenic Area
We stopped in the town of Ten Sleep for a few minutes so Megan could use the hotspot to submit her online college algebra homework. Once she finished that, we drove out to the Castle Gardens Scenic Area to the southwest of Ten Sleep. The drive took us down a five mile gravel road, which is my limit to the length of gravel road I’m willing to travel on without a cell phone signal. I always figure I wouldn’t want to walk any further than that to get back to the highway if we needed help. The scenery here was so pretty!
Side Note: There are two places in Wyoming that are called Castle Gardens and both are managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The one we visited is Castle Gardens Scenic Area. The other one is called Castle Gardens Petroglyph Site. The petroglyph site is near Shoshoni, WY and the scenic area is near Ten Sleep, WY. I have no clue why they are both called Castle Gardens, but it makes it tricky to find info on the one you want if all you know is that it’s called “Castle Gardens.” Both appear to have similar sandstone outcroppings, so the other one is on the to-do list for a future trip.
There is a tiny, four-site BLM campground at the end of the drive, but unfortunately, the two campsites left were not big enough for our tent and looked a little sketchy. One had a lot of weeds in a tent pad that was too small and the other appeared to have a bad drainage problem that I would not have wanted to set a tent on. It would’ve been a neat spot if the sites were better maintained or one of the other sites had been available. I had hoped we could camp here for some different scenery and to have more time to explore, but without a campsite, we had to get back into Tensleep Canyon. Even without a campsite or a hike, this was still worth the drive to see!
The Search for a Campsite
I feel like I use this heading a lot, but we didn’t reserve any campsites for this trip so we searched for a new site each night.
We headed back to Ten Sleep with the plan to camp at Leigh Creek Campground. We found a great site next to the creek, but I wanted to check out another campground I had read about called Tensleep Campground. As it turns out, that wasn’t a campground at all, but dispersed camping along the old highway 16, which is now a gravel road…all 8 miles of it. This area would have amazing views for the campsites along the road in the canyon, but it seemed like all of them were very full. Forty minutes later, after winding our way up the gravel road and back down Ten Sleep Canyon, we arrived back at Leigh Creek. That great site we saw earlier was now full and the only spot left was right next to the highway. Darn!
I don’t know what time it was, but at least it was still light out. Back up the canyon we went. Plan C was Boulder Park Campground. Our drive up the canyon turned into an eerie fog-filled drive and we missed our turn. We turned around one more time and found the campground we were looking for.
Home for the Night
Boulder Park was gorgeous! The camp host had flowers in hanging pots, plus there were wildflowers everywhere. After a tour of the campground, we selected site 12 and managed to get the tent almost up before it started sprinkling. We skipped cooking and I put together ham and cheese sandwiches in the CR-V while we watched it rain. Rain every night wasn’t on our bingo card, but at least it wasn’t a thunderstorm…or snow.
For such a short day of driving, we saw quite the variety of scenery: a creekside hike in the woods, mountain views, a gorgeous canyon, otherworldly rock formations, and so many lavender lupines! We sampled a little of everything that the southern Bighorns have to offer, and we’ll be heading to the northern Bighorns next time!