Wyoming USA – Crinkled Land with Massive Flat Topped Stripey Rock Punched Through It – Mormons and Thoughts on Temperature from A. A. Milne – Cycling the Great Divide, USA
The rain coming in over the Tetons. After a month of heatwave the rain and then the heavy snow that met us as we cycled up the Togwotee Pass were a bit of a shock. We had woken that morning to find our lakeside camp awash, and our tent groundsheet under an inch of liquid mud.
The ground had looked quite solid when we pitched the tent, by the morning it was liquid. We wrung our tent into its bag and wearing full waterproofs set of for the pass.
By the time we were half way up we were drenched through and frozen. The snow was getting thicker but not settling on the road yet.
We were wondering if this would be a classic rain shadow example and we would get to the other side in sunshine, but the sight of a warm, dry lodge changed our plans and we stayed there for the night. Probably a mistake as more snow had settled overnight. It really was the hotel’s idea that we hang up our wet camping gear in the room!
Leaving our nice warm hotel in the morning
We left Yellowstone and cycled up to the pass in the freezing snow. We hoped that the weather would be different on the other side. And we were right, it wasn’t snowing there, it was just icy rain, so we had to limit our descent speed to 30 mph to avoid wind chill. The following day was heatwave again! We stayed at the tiny town of Dubois at the bottom of the pass. In most small towns around here they have an antler workshop, as all deer lose their antlers each year.
Finally got to the top. Normally there would be a stunning view from here!
The antler Gallery in Dubois. He had made some beautiful things from the antlers
We had been going to turn back on to the Great Divide Off-road route once over the pass as my hand was feeling a bit better, but for once common sense prevailed as that route carried on up back into the snow.
We decided to stay on road here. Looking back we could see the route that we would have been taking was white.
Once over the pass the land changed dramatically. Gone were the mountainous forested slopes. In Wyoming the land was crinkled flat with massive rocky outcrops punched up through it. There are no trees, and the only vegetation is long, dried, golden grass and sage scrub which you can see for hundreds of miles.
In Wyoming the wind whistles across the barren, rocky wilderness
Keeping up the energy levels with the odd Snickers!!
Miles of empty, dried grassland
We had a big day after leaving Dubois as we were passing an Indian Reservation where we were not allowed to camp, so we had to make 80 miles. The final 20 miles were against a strong head wind but we finally made it, chased into the campsite by black rain clouds.
The next day was very hot again but it was great to be in the sun although we had to climb over the Beaver Divide to Sweetwater
We stayed at the campsite in the Mormon missionary centre called The Mormon Hand Cart Centre of the 6th Crossing. They were very kind to us. I have to say that having been to a Catholic boarding school I am immune to missionaries, but the film about the early Mormons pulling their hand carts across frozen terrain for thousands of miles was fascinating.
Campsite in the Mormon missionary centre called The Mormon Hand Cart Centre of the 6th Crossing.
Walking along their river trail we saw mule deer, herons, hawks and beaver lodges but not the beavers unfortunately
One of the Beaver dams
We thought we were going to have an easy day after leaving the Mormon camp, but we reached our proposed camp at Muddy Gap very early, and the second proposed camp was shut
We thought we were going to have an easy day, but found our proposed camp was shut and had to cycle another 40 miles to the next one in Rawlins.
This made a 90 mile day over two continental divides. We arrived at Rawlins after dark and very tired after battling against very strong side winds
You can see the millennia of rock layers in these outcrops as beautiful coloured strips.
