A thought came to me today when someone mentioned the last trip west with friends in August 2015. It concerns the mountain ranges of America, which are varied, huge and magnificent. Wyoming has several mountain ranges having varying differences from each other. On earlier visits we spent about three days at Wiggins Fork River in the Absaroka Mountains north of Dubois, Wyoming, and about the same length of time in the Wind River Range, south of Dubois, Wyoming. On other trips besides the Absarokas we visited the Cloud Peak area of the Big Horn Mountains. I had visited the Dubois area some 13 times, starting in 1997 and the North Platte River twice.
On previous trips in Wyoming with friends and relatives we spent more time in the Absaroka Range due north of Dubois, Wyoming. Nearby was Wiggins Peak at 12,176 feet above sea level. The Absarokas runs NW to touch the SE edge of Yellowstone National Park. The mountains have rock crowned crests shaped like giant castles or cathedrals, as one peak is called, with pine forests clustered around the lower slopes. Once on four-wheelers we crossed from the east slope to Wiggins Fork River through a pass from the east side at East Fork, which Wiggins Fork joins after passing through a rift in the mountain range. Wiggins Fork joins the East Fork that joins the Wind River below Dubois.
In Wyoming the great Big Horn Mountains in north central Wyoming extend into Montana. On one trip our gang rode a forest service road across the top of the Big Horn Mountains, where the Indians’ sacred wheel made of stones lies near the west slopes. We had to route our four-wheel drive truck around snow drifts still existing in August. Another world lies on top of these western mountains! I have one photo where in the Big Horn Mountains I am standing on top of a volcanic cone. Up here are grassy meadows and rolling plains, jutting volcanic crags, streams and hidden valleys. On the eastern edge near Sheridan in the Cloud Peak Wilderness area we have camped and fond memories of those times still arise in my mind.
On two earlier trips with Ronald Vandiver we camped on top of the Wind River Range that has vast expanses of rolling plains, dense forests of pines, streams and lakes. We saw deer, elk, eagles, and antelope. Where we caught brook trout to eat for supper on the sandbars were giant footprints of a grizzly bear! The next day two of our guys went to catch some trout before we left for home but the grizzly bear was already there! They made a wise choice and returned to camp!
On the historic Union Pass Road across the Wind River Range to the Green River, where trappers held rendezvous, we saw mule deer, an eagle diving on a marmot and clumps of wildflowers, a path first used for unknown ages by buffalo, Plains Indians, and then explorers and trappers. Once we met a cowboy on a horse and with a dog looking for stray cattle. On one trip I met a retired rancher and wife camping off the Union Pass Road. The lady said when they had a ranch up here she thought the greatest danger for her children came from elk cows with calves. After hearing her I was fishing and came on a cow elk and calf. After the cow gave me a hard look I turned and fished back the other way!
My thought is, don’t make any female with a child uneasy or upset.
