Posted from Old Faithful Visitor Center
Monday, July 6 – Wednesday, July 8
The last day at Devils Tower was pretty rough. The forecast high was 95. It got up to 99 degrees in the van. Thank goodness the humidity was only 8%. That helped some…
I finally reached Bald Mountain Campground after second guessing myself and turning around when I didn’t need to. There is a bubbling stream right next to my campsite. Unfortunately because of the stream, there is a stupid amount of misquotes. Though, there are a lot fewer now than when I arrive. Swat, swat… The grass and plants are nice and green and there are also lots of tall, skinny evergreen trees. We’re at 9120 feet, so I imagine it is going to be much cooler tonight compared to Devils Tower.
I had been at the campsite maybe 20 minutes – sitting in the van looking through information on Wyoming, when I head a low huffing sound in the brush behind the van. I said to myself, “that is a bear or a moose”. I looked around until I noticed some branches shaking and then a moose’s head pops up! That’s some pretty tall undergrowth because I can only see the antlers and head about 50 yards away.
The moose moves behind a couple evergreens for a while and finally came out on the other side after a few minutes. It keeps moving to the left and disappears again. After some more waiting it starts moving to the right and is zig zagging closer to my campsite. It about to get to an area where I will hopefully start seeing more of its body, but the woman at the site next to mine comes out of her Airstream to investigate. Unfortunately, the sound of the screen door scares the moose away. Crap!
Later, after dinner, I notice a couple walking in the campground who I recognize from last night’s Devils Tower ranger talk. I step out of the van to say hello and ask if they were just at Devils Tower. We have a nice conversation talking about our travels.
On Tuesday morning, I drove to Porcupine Falls since it looked like a nice water fall in the Bighorn National Forest pamphlet I got at a visitors center. Porcupine Falls is a 200 foot waterfall off FSR 14. A .8 mile trail takes you down 360 feet to the waterfall.
It was an easy hike down to the falls, unfortunately, in the morning the waterfall is in shadow. I didn’t have internet access, so I couldn’t research the best time for photography.
I was thinking about returning in the afternoon on another day, but the hike back up to the van about killed me. I haven’t adjusted the 9000 ft altitude yet, so I wrote off a return hike.
Tuesday night thunder storms rolled in. Some of the clouds looked different than what I’m used to. I’m guessing the difference is that I’m seeing them from 9000 feet up, so I’m kind of looking them in the eye, so to speak.
On Wednesday morning, I set out to find Shell Falls that a couple told me about on my first night at Devils Tower. Along the way, we stopped at a couple spots.
There are lots of interesting rock formations in Bighorn National Forest, though they are not as dramatic as the ones in Black Hills National Forest. One formation in Bighorn that caught my attention looked like a mini Stonehenge.
Sam and I hiked up to the formation for a closer look. Once we got closer, I felt like I had stepped into a scene from Breath of the Wild. Interesting rock formations with some nice trees.
A little over an hour later, we made it to Shell Falls. The waterfall was nice, but the thing that really impressed me was how deep the canyon is. Even though these was a strong fence between me and the canyon, standing at the edge still felt scary. Wish the photos could show how steep the drop-off is.
The drive out of Bighorn National Forest going west was pretty dramatic. Driving through mountains where you can see the layers of rock pushing each other up. If I had known, I would have recorded the drive on my GoPro.
I needed to get gas, so I kept driving to the city of Greybull to fill up. I had one more night at Bald Mountain campground, but it felt silly to drive 65 miles back and then on Thursday to drive back to Greybull. I hopped online and was able to book a campsite for 2 night in Yellowstone, so we continued on to Yellowstone.