Mesa Falls and Momma Moose

It was time to take it easy after the long hike and a full day of fishing so on Saturday we did a whole lot of nothing much.Today, Sunday, was kind of a slow day too but we did get out and explore the area. 

On the day of the big hike we had planned on stopping to see Mesa Falls but we were so tired after the hike that we put it off until today.The lodge was built by a power company that thought it would construct a hydro electric generator near the falls and the lodge would have been used as their offices. The electric project never got past the building of the lodge. In the mean time the CCC came in and constructed viewing platforms and paths at both the upper and lower falls and the lodge was used for tourists until the improvements on the road to Yellowstone were completed and then the falls were by-passed and the place fell into disrepair. It wasn’t too long ago that the lodge was renovated and more people are coming to see this beautiful building and the magnificent waterfall.

The Lower Mesa Falls are more stunning but due to the lay of the land they have to be viewed from a distance. While we were looking around a young girl walked up, all breathless and asked if we had seen any kayaks go over the falls. It seems she had seen three men hike down towards the lower falls carrying kayaks so they could run the falls. We got all excited but after waiting over 30 minutes we grew restless and left. So we don’t know if they were successful or not.

We explored more of the side roads and residential areas along the river through Island Park and as we were driving away from a small dam we spotted this momma moose and her calf strolling down the road. Our first moose sighting!

South Fork River

John really wants to catch some trout so we paid a guide to take us down the South Fork River in a float boat. The guide company’s head guide, Bob Lamb, is from Sedalia as are two other guides, Jay Hurt was one who vaguely remembers our son.

Our guide, Eldon, is from Idaho Falls so is very familiar with the rivers and the fishing in this area. Actually, we drove over an hour south of here to the South Fork River which is part of the Snake River that runs from the Tetons, through Idaho and up to Oregon. I just went along for the ride while John did all the fishing. 

It was a beautifully sunny day with a slight breeze and Eldon seemed to know where the trout were hiding but they would not take John’s bait. Eldon changed flies about every 10 minutes. He finally found a hole where John got several strikes and pulled in a couple of Yellowstone Cutthroat trout. We had lunch on a rock bar in the middle of the river and the boys did some fishing from there too. It was a long day but worth the time and effort.

Warm Springs and a Long Hike

With the Motor Vehicle Use Map and a hiking information sheet from the national forest service we took off in the Jeep to explore the Ashton/Island Park Ranger district. John chose to go to the Mesa Waterfalls driving on only back roads so as to avoid the traffic on the highway. It was a dusty but pretty drive that paralleled an old railroad line, crossed many fields and shared the road with big black cows! We also got our first look at the Tetons from the west.

Before we got to Mesa Falls we decided to divert to Warm River Springs to have a picnic lunch and take a short hike. Back in the early 1900’s folks determined that the water temperature would be perfect for raising trout then later the CCC came in and put in more permanent buildings and some troughs for the trout. It was closed in the 1970’s although a house is still available for overnight rentals. The location is very pretty with cascades of water shooting out of the mountain side and down to the river.

The short hike, however, turned into an all-afternoon affair! We hiked up the mountain side, across the top and then started down. We stopped to consider going further or turning around but since we had only walked for about 30 minutes we opted to continue down the hill. By the time we got to the bottom, we didn’t want to turn around and go back up so we walked along the creek for a ways. By the time we thought we should maybe turn around it seemed that we were probably about half way along the hike and it would be about the same going forward as going back. So we continued on in the hot sun on a path that was less than shoulder width and mostly hidden by arm-pit tall grasses, weeds and bushes. And we walked on, and on, and on! Finally we came to the trail that would lead us back to Warm River Springs, or so we thought. It went up, and up and up, then down and down and down and still we had so sign of the river or the buildings. We had started about 1:30 and it was now 5:30. We sat down, finished our water and hoped we were close to the end! The last mile took forever!

In the end we hiked for 4 hours and covered over 7 1/2 miles of forest, field and mountain!

Where's The Trout?

John got up early this morning and went fishing for a couple of hours, had breakfast and went fishing again. No trout.

We decided that this would be a good day to go into West Yellowstone to go grocery shopping and to have a dinner out since it is only about a 30 minute drive. Boy, was the town hopping. This is surely the busiest time of the year for this whole area. We had a nice dinner at the Madison Crossing Restaurant. We visited with people at the bar while dining. One couple was from Reno and the other was from the Waldo neighborhood in Kansas City! In fact, they know folks in Sedalia with whom we are acquainted. Small world!

Moving On Already

We got up this morning and decided we really didn’t like this campground so we got in the Jeep and started checking out the other places down the road. Our friend Lanny told John that a good trout fishing river would be the Buffalo River just south of here. When we found the Buffalo Campground, we knew it was worth the trouble to move a whole 8 miles. This sight is shaded with an electrical hookup, on a paved road, near the river and has at least a little bit of cell service whereas the other site had nothing.

Once we got moved we walked to the nearby Ranger station and got some literature about this area and other parts of Idaho. John spent the evening getting his fishing gear ready for some early morning trout fishing.

Across Yellowstone

Wanting to start our time in Idaho as soon as possible, we chose to traverse Yellowstone Nat. Park instead of going around it.  We planned on it taking about 3 hours from one gate to the opposite gate with no stops and accounting for summer traffic.  It was actually better than we had hoped and it only took 2 hours 15 minutes with only one slow down due to bison near the road (thankfully not ON the road). It’s a beautiful park but there are so many people!  We have decided that if we ever want to go there again it will be late August or September when the kids are back in school and vacation times are mostly over.

From West Yellowstone we traveled south on Hwy 20 to one of the first Caribou-Targhee National Forest campgrounds we saw.  It’s on the Henry’s Fork River which feeds into the Snake River.  We thought we might have a hard time finding an open site but, thankfully, we were wrong.  Our next door neighbor is very friendly and she had lots of advice for us since she has been camping here for the past 9 years all by herself. The bad part is that we are in full sun from noon on and on a very busy, dusty road.

Shortly after supper, three men on motorcycles pulled into the site on the other side of us. John got to talking with them and they were from Missouri, St. Louis area. The group is a father and son and son’s friend.  The father is 76 and they are traveling down the Continental Divide from Canada to Colorado, camping along the way in tents. We are amazed at their adventure.

Through the Fire and in to Cody

During breakfast at the nearby South Fork Lodge the hostess said that she had driven past the road closed gate, past another road closed sign and near the fire area they were escorting people to the other side of the fire area.  We heard that they had evacuated at least three camping areas on that side of the mountains so we were hesitant to head that direction. The hostess and some others didn’t seem to think this fire was that bad and that the forest service was over-reacting. What the heck - lets go for it!

Sure enough, no one stopped us on the highway until we got to the place where the escort was set up.  We waited about 35 minutes, 20 some cars and RV’s went by and then we were led down the Tensleep Canyon to the west side of the Bighorn National Forest.  We saw some smoke, three different areas where a fire had been but no flames or firetrucks.  It was a non-event, but the drive was beautiful.  That canyon is very long with majestic walls of rock going down a very long and steep grade with one tight ’S’ curve. Then all of a sudden we are in the village of Tensleep, out of the canyon and into high dessert where there is nothing to see but scrub. Amazing geography!

We are staying in Cody tonight so I can get the laundry done, we can dump and then figure out our next move. Cody is a cowboy town, a tourist destination and the gateway into Yellowstone National Park.

Last Day in Bighorn

Around the bend from Tie Hack campground is a road to Elgin Trail Head. We packed a lunch, got on our hiking gear and determined to explore the area, hike and maybe fish in the Tie Hack Reservoir from the back side.  From the beginning we determined that this whole park area is a dispersed camping area for boondockers, people who like to camp off the grid, back in the woods.  Some campers really were off by themselves, others were camped in groups, some had horses and most had OHV’s (Off Highway Vehicles aka ATVs). 

After several wrong turns (which we described as checking out a road and not getting lost) we found the hiking trail that is suppose to lead to the lake.  We never saw water but enjoyed the quite solitude of our walk.

This afternoon John asked our campground host about the road closure. He brought us a printout of the forest service bulletin that had the road closed but indicated that they were escorting vehicles through the closed area. If that’s not confusing!  The host, Sam, stayed and visited awhile around our fire. Very nice people whom we hope we will run into again down the road.

Crazy Woman!

We are getting tired of long hikes so we decided to check out the river below the Tie Hack Reservoir.  We walked down hill through the woods until the path opened onto a lovely open field.  Just then a whole herd of cattle started stampeding out of the woods and across the hillside!  I guess we are pretty scary people!  There must have been about 50 head but a couple of heifers got left behind and began bellowing as we walked past.  Poor things, scared of us??

The walk back upstream toward the dam was enjoyable.  The stream gurgling along, the trees shading us from the sun, and I’d like to say the birds were chirping but it was very quiet. We thought about crossing the dam and walking along the far side of the lake but the trail had washed out so we back tracked back down stream. The cows were all gone.

We have read a lot about the Crazy Woman Canyon so we drove through it and then took the back way into Buffalo. There are numerous stories about the name ‘Crazy Woman’.  One tells of an Indian maiden who was crazy, another of a very young St. Louis girl who dressed as a fur trapper and hiked the canyons and another of a woman pioneer lost in the canyon and forests. Anyway, the canyon is well named as it is very narrow with high, rugged walls and a fast flowing Crazy Woman Creek down the middle. As we came out the south side, the walls of the canyon made for a very rugged looking mountain backdrop. 

We took time to go to the library to catch up on our FB, email and news then had a drink at the famous Occidental Hotel where Butch Cassidy, Teddy Roosevelt, Ernest Hemingway, Buffalo Bill Cody, Clamity Jane, and other famous wild west characters have stayed.

As we were shopping we overheard people talking about a wild fire in west Big Horn Nat. Forest  that had closed Hwy 16.  Since that is the direction we intended to travel, we were very interested in what they said.

Tie Hack

After studiously studying the Bighorn National Forest map we chose an unimproved road to take to a hiking trailhead so we could get both an off-road ride and hike done today. As far as we know these roads and trails only have numbers and no names. But if I could name them I would call the hiking trail Rocky Springs and the road Tie Hacker.

The hike was lovely but a bit of a challenge as it climbed into the foothills of Loaf Mountain. We crossed several rock falls and one of them had water running through it with no apparent source. We assumed a spring thus the name I chose.

A Point of Interest along the road told about the railroad company cutting trees and hackers shaping the logs into railroad ties (tie hackers). They would pile them in the creek bed so that the spring run off would carry them down the mountain to the reservoir then down the river to Buffalo. Today the creek if full of willow trees.

The Cloud Peak Wilderness Area has three peaks - Loaf, Big Horn and Danton, all about 12,000 feet tall. Actually there are more but these are the tallest.

Bighorn Mountain and National Forest

Yesterday evening we pulled into the Tiehack Campground in the Bighorn Nat. Forest. It's a very nice place and is near a lovely reservoir.  When we woke up this morning it was 57 degrees so we are out of the heat!!

Our first job was to find some hiking trails and some Jeeping roads so we drove into Buffalo to the ranger station and got some maps and advice. Since I had packed a picnic lunch we headed for the recommended hiking trail. It took us into the Cloud Peak Wilderness Area up about 900 feet to Sherd Lake. It was a lovely hike. We logged about 5 miles, met some nice folks, saw one buck, mistook a duck for a beaver and enjoyed the cooler temperatures.

We like this area enough to stay through the weekend but we will need to find a site that's not reserved. The ranger thought we might like another campground that was more secluded and less busy but after a 15 mile drive, we opted to stay where we are. Luck is with us as a walk-in site is empty when we get back so we quickly moved the RV and resettled. 

Retreat From the Heat!

We had a great time with our grandsons but by Sunday they were very ready to go home with mom and dad and we were happy to see them leave. We then jumped right in to our preparations to leave town ourselves.  At 10 am Monday morning we pulled out of our driveway.

The weather forecast predicted a heat index in the 100's and the radar showed rain in Nebraska so we wanted to avoid the rain and get out of the heat as quickly as we could.  Our route took us to Hwy 36 in the northern part of Kansas then a jog up to McCook, NE where we spent the night then over to I-25 in WY, north to Buffalo and into the Bighorn Mountains. We did it in two days!

Westward expansion happened along parts of the route we drove. We were on the California Trail, the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail scenic byways. Across Nebraska and into Wyoming they all took the same road and most did not diverge until Casper, WY. A prominent feature the pioneers saw on this route was Chimney Rock so we stopped to admire it as well. 

Day 8

We can tell it's time for Mom and Dad to come home.  Tempers are short and tears come easily over little things.  John took them to the State Fair Grounds this morning to look at the wild mustangs and burros that are for sale.  The Native American Pow Wow is this weekend, but their timing was off so they did not get to see any Indian dances.  I got to stay at home to write this blog and start preparations for our next RV trip leaving on Monday morning.

John took the boys to the Country Club pool for the afternoon and again, I had time to work in quiet.  

Days 5, 6, 7

Day 5, Wednesday, was a big day as we went to Kansas City to the Sea Life Aquarium and LegoLand with lunch at Fritz’s Railroad Restaurant.  John and I are getting too old to ‘enjoy’ kid friendly attractions.  The noise is unbearable, the kids seem to run around unsupervised and the boys tended to move from activity to activity without really seeing or learning anything!  On the whole we enjoyed Sea Life the best but felt that LegoLand was a complete bust but the boys would argue that LegoLand was the best and Sea Life was just okay!  See what I mean - we are too old!

Lunch at Fritz’s was fun but also very noisy.  There is an elevated track above the tables where toy trains carry the food tray to your table and lowers it on an elevator.  Its fun to watch how it works.  The food was okay.  It turned out to be a great day to do indoor stuff as it stormed most of the time we were there.

Day 6, Thursday was a slow day as we had to wait for a repairman to show up and we had to take the Jeep to get some work done. So the boys played outside, played with my marbles on the living room floor and watched TV.  After lunch we took the Jeep to the dealer and then went swimming at the Liberty Pool which has a long, curling water slide.  They loved it!  RJ & Lisa offered to have the boys come over for supper and to spend the night so we could have a break!  We enjoyed our quiet time and the kids had a ball doing stuff with Uncle RJ.  He took them out on the pond in the peddle boat, roasted s’mores, then went for a Ranger Ride around the farm. Luca slept on a bed but the other three ‘camped out’ on the floor.  I guess Luca regaled them with stories of our adventure in Kansas City. That boy doesn’t miss a thing, including Grandpa’s sometimes inappropriate language!

Today we drove over to Warrensburg and explored Cave Hollow Park where they found a turtle, spotted mushrooms, butterflies and dragonflies and climbed on the carved rock formations.  We then had lunch with Aunt Karen and Uncle Bruce before swimming in their pool.  When they got tired of swimming, Karen showed them how to get the chickens to jump for grapes and they gathered 2 eggs from their nests. Uncle Bruce entertained them with bowling in the den then got his pet crow, Mimi, to do a few tricks for them. All the kids slept on the car ride home.  Big day!

Days 2, 3, & 4

Grandparents camp continued. 

We wore the boys out as they slept in until 8am. Sunday saw the whole family at church and then we dined at the Country Club. We waited too long to take pictures as evidenced by Nora crying.  

Later in the afternoon I got out the slip-n-slide and sprinkler for some cool fun in the back yard. A movie rounded out the day.

 

Monday (they slept in again!) after getting their hair cut we visited the Katy Depot and played at the park until lunch time. After lunch we took the two boys to visit Great Grandma. They were very good and shared lots of their recent adventures with her. John took them to the pool while I took a nap and fixed supper. 

Today we had plans to go to Powell Gardens but it rained all morning so we played games like Slap Jack, Match Game and keep-the-balloon-in-the-air-and-away-from-Granny games. This afternoon I got really brave and took all four kids to see "The Secret Life of Pets" then to DQ for ice cream. They were all really good!

Grandparent Camp

Luca and Vincent arrived on Friday.  Their mom and dad stayed for supper and then took off to KC to stay at the airport motel as they had a 6 AM flight to Portland, OR.  The boys were up at 6:30 and it has been non stop all day.  While I was at the beauty salon getting my hair done, John played ball with the boys and then took them on a hike thru the woods behind our house. They watched TV while they ate lunch and John and I tried to rest up for the afternoon fun.

I got out my ‘Experiment Kit’ and we played mad scientist by exploding the lid off of film canisters and recording the results. We timed how long it took to blow the top off and then how far the canister would shoot out of a tube and then we tried to shove a toy car down the driveway with an exploding canister.  About that time the heat was just too much so we met the RJ Lindstrom family at the country club pool and cooled off in the water for a couple of hours. 

Pizza for supper with Liam and Ella at their house and RJ shooting off leftover fireworks at dusk rounded out our day.  We are pooped and its only been one day!!  7 more to go!

Back to Missouri

We left on Saturday for the drive back to Missouri. We are still fighting the GPS and having to use the AAA map to guide us along the back roads and through the towns.  That and some rain slowed us down until we got on the interstate. We stayed in St. Charles Sunday and Monday (the 4th of July) and had a lovely visit with my Mom and Bernie.  It rained off and on all weekend and we totally missed all the fireworks while we played an exciting card game of 3/13.

We arrived home just in time to endure the summer heat wave - 96°+ with a heat index of 102° in which to unload the RV and get the house ready for company. We will be keeping our two Oklahoma grandsons for a whole week while their parents enjoy a Columbia River Cruise in Oregon.

Pig, Cub Run, Sweeden

Having exhausted ourselves with hiking and biking over the last few days, we decided to take a car ride around the perimeter of the park to explore the small towns and to take a short hike.  

I was fascinated by the names of the towns we went through like Pig, Cub Run, Sweeden, Scotland, Munfordville, Cave City, Park City, and Horse Cave. We got off the beaten path and traveled down a one-lane gravel road, past an old cemetery and across a dry creek bed at the bottom of a steep ravine.  Shortly past the creek we were stopped by about 6 National Park Service vehicles parked in the middle of the road.  As we approached a ranger got out of his truck and stopped us. He said, “There’s a personal safety concern ahead and we have to ask you to turn around and go back. Try the road again this afternoon, it’s a beautiful drive.”  What in the heck is a “personal safety concern”? We don’t know, use your imagination!

We then found a 2.6 mile trail that led to the river so we started down it, went about 1.5 miles, stopped for lunch and then came back.  It was just too hot to continue to the river. One small town advertised a Farmer’s Market but when we found it there was only one lady selling her produce.  Most of the small villages had many empty buildings, some historic ones and then you were out of the city limits. We also crossed the Nolin Lake Damn and, too late, discovered that John could have trout fished below the dam.

By the time we got back to the RV it was time for a cocktail and dinner preparations.