Family Trip Aug 2020

Day 1: We left home at 2:30 a.m. one morning in early August, and by 5:00 p.m. that day we were in Buffalo, WY.  (We only stopped a couple times on the way out.) After getting fuel and ice, we headed into the Big Horn Mountains to find a place to camp. We had intended to camp in a National Forest campground, and there were several in the area that we would be visiting. Since we had several "bumps" in our plans shortly before our trip, none of us were totally sure it would work to take this family vacation, so we hadn't reserved any campsites. We drove through 3 campgrounds and there were no openings, but because it's a national forest, dispersed camping is allowed. [In case you don't know, dispersed camping means you can camp anywhere you can find a spot as long as your vehicle is specified number of feet off the road.]  

Look what we saw while looking for a campsite!!! 

A mama moose (cow) and her baby (calf) munching on "moose moss".   Ha ha! 

Does anybody know what children's book the phrase "looking for moose moss to munch" comes from??  (Leave us a comment below if you do!) 

Some of us didn't even realize that moose lived in the area, and none of us were expecting to see any!! 

We saw one more on day 3 of the trip. 

We had stopped to look at a possible place to camp (outside the last campground we checked). The truck that had been following us (obviously also looking for a campsite) stopped to look as well. Mom decided to go talk to them. Turns out they lived somewhat local, and said that normally these campgrounds weren't full. They had found a site for that night but were looking for a site for the next night. They told us about a road that had lots of places to camp along it. So we went to check it out... We took a winding gravel road through the mountains for about 8-9 miles, trying to find a place to camp that was close to a creek (since the boys wanted to fish). But we weren't finding many spots big enough to pitch two tents, (there wasn't much for creeks either...) it was getting later, and the general attitude of folks in the van was starting to change... Then we came around a curve and this is what we saw:

Needless to say: we didn't go any further... :) It turned out the creek was only about 1/2 mile down the road, so the guys were able to just hike down there to fish.... Another great discovery was that there was a spring-fed stock tank at the top of the meadow (about 1/4 mile up the mountain from our camping place,) so we had "cool, clear water" that we didn't even have to pump! It tasted great. :)  We ended up spending all 3 nights here. It was amazing to wake up to this view:

After much discussion and debate, I think we finally all agreed that the big mountain on the right is "Hesse Mountain" and the one on the left was Hazelton Pyramid. There is actually one more peak to the left, named Hazelton Peak, but we couldn't see it from our campsite.

We thought this was a great place to start with, but when we found out that we were camping in a cow pasture, it was even better! They checked out our tents the first night, but after that, pretty much left us alone.

Day 2: We used our campsite as the base for adventures. The boys went fishing: the creek had trout in it, and the guys all caught fish, (something that hasn't always happened on family trips!)  Grace, Laura, and I went for a 7 mile hike that morning. Dad and Mom did some hiking closer to camp.  After lunch a few of us went back into Buffalo for ice and to see if we could get some maps of hiking trails. Upon arriving back at camp, most of us siblings went on another several-mile hike. We had to do some trailblazing when the trail we were on suddenly ended (We had Matt's GPS which showed the trail was supposed to make a loop, but it obviously didn't). So we made our own way back to the main trail, using the GPS to make sure we were headed in the right direction....  We learned that weather can change so fast in the mountains- on the way back to camp it started raining... but it didn't last very long, and turned out to be another lovely evening. The guys went fishing again. 

Hot meals always taste great when camping! In an effort to use minimal cooler space, us gals prepared meals that we could dehydrate so they took the least amount of space possible. These meals are then easy to cook in camp. Add water, and cook until everything is tender. We tried a couple new recipes this year and they all turned out good.   

Nights were cool, days were warm, but it wasn't humid in the mountains, so we enjoyed the weather! 

Day 3: I headed down to the creek with my camera before breakfast. We all agreed that the walk down to the creek wasn't too bad, but that hike back was all up hill, and since we were camping at 8600 feet we definitely noticed the thinner air. Laura thought the creek got further away every time she went down there.

The North Fork of Crazy Women Creek

The Marmot who hung out down by the creek. 

"Glassing"

I took way too many pictures of these mountains- we all enjoyed hanging out at camp. 

We fried fish to go with breakfast that morning, and then headed out in the van to see some other things. First stop was Powder River Pass. The pass is at 9660 ft. and across  HWY 16 there was a "pile of rocks" that looked fun... So up went our brothers- and us girls followed shortly thereafter. The air was quite thin up there, but we didn't stop climbing till we reached 10,000 ft. We hung out up there for a while to catch our breath, and then came back down. Our tracker said it was really only about 1/4 mile hike- but there wasn't any level spot on the whole hike: Here are some pictures of that adventure:

See the rock pile in the behind them? 

We climbed up to the backside of the highest point on the left side. 

Here we are, sitting 10,000 feet above sea level!! 

 (I, Emily, was up here too, just on the other side of the camera!)

You could see a long way!! Look how small the car on the road is. ;) 

It was also really windy up there, so after perching on the top of the rocks for a short while, we tried to find places more out of the wind. 

Siblings make the best adventure partners! 

Next up: Crazy Women Canyon... We attempted to access the other end of this canyon last time we were in WY (April of 2018), but the snow that was still there hindered us from getting very far. It looked like such a cool place to explore, so was definitely on our to-do list for this year. The road that goes through the canyon is a bit crazy too. Steep grades with small washouts are always fun in a full-size-extended van...  But it was totally worth it! :) We stopped once we got to the Crazy Women Creek and had lunch by it. The boys fished the creek and Silas did really well catching both Rainbow and Brown Trout there. While the boys fished, working their way down stream, Laura explored up stream, and later took Dad, Mom, Grace and I to see the cool place she found. The creek is one waterfall after another, and is pretty in and of itself. You could follow the banks up stream for a while and then you got to a place where on either side of the creek are massive cliff walls going straight up...  Like mountains, it was so magnificent, something you can't really take pictures of... So you enjoy it and try to store it's massiveness in your brain, because pictures just don't do it justice.

My posed picture of Dad and Mom didn't turn out, so you get a snapshot instead... 

Mule deer with a fawn. We saw quite a few mule deer out there. 

After we got back up out of the canyon, we drove up Sheep Mountain to an old fire tower. We walked around up there for a while and enjoyed the view!! 

There is something about mountains that I love, and it's kind of hard to explain. 

When you are confronted with vastness and the greatness of a mountain range you feel so small. You stand there, and your brain can't really comprehend their size. It reminds me how God is so much bigger and more powerful than I can even imagine. My brain can't comprehend that either, but yet He knows me by name and cares about me (and all of you as well)!! For me, mountains are a reminder of God's greatness and my insignificance. And even though I'm insignificant, God sent His Son to make a way for me to become a child of God and to find my significance in Him. I'm so grateful for that!

We even took a couple family pictures-something we don't do very often:

Notice how everyone is smiling in this picture?? 

They were laughing at me since I had 10 seconds scramble across the rocks where I had my camera propped up and get into my place. I barely made it.... ha ha! At least it made for a good picture!

Day 4: Left the mountains around 6:30am (CST) and began the long trip home... The way home consisted of naps/resting, a crazy game of "I am going on a trip and I'm going to take...", lots of snacking on the leftover food, general conversation, and listening to a radio broadcast of a rodeo... We stopped at a western store in SD where several family members got new work boots, and Silas got a rope. These are the only souvenirs of our trip as we avoided all "tourist traps."  

We arrived home around 10:00 pm tired & exhausted, but at the same time refreshed and so glad we went. Normally we don't take a vacation in the summer, but because our favorite music festival was cancelled, we decided that since we hadn't had a family vacation since April 2018, we could take a little time off and go somewhere fun as a family...  Now we are okay with the fact that we didn't get to go in April, because we would never have been able to do what we did in the mountains if we had gone then. In many ways the delay made the trip even better.  

We are extremely grateful to the neighbors who put in hours here at the farm to take care of our animals and made it possible for us to get away! Thank you so much!!