The cold got me up at 1:15am, again two hours later. Sadie seemed OK next to me but I could never get rid of that cold draft through the sleeping bag. I couldn't wait for sunrise to get up and leave.
And when the sun finally rose, there were no elk! When I let Sadie out for her morning pee however, she gave off the most unusual bark, a rapid-fire bark such that I've never heard fromk her. When I drove off down FR15, she, instead of running after the van, ran the opposite way up an OTV trail. What was going on? Where the scents of elk, bear, cat scaring her? I thought for a split second she was going to take off and disappear into the dark forest, but she did come back down afterall. I was very relieved. Her behavior reminded me of John Steinbeck's poodle in "Travels with Charley" when he drove through Yellowstone.
I drove the end of FR15 and exited, finally, back on Alt14 toward Lovell. This was truly "High Country" when snow packs still on northern slopes. But no elk. I saw a few in the distance, but no flocking herds grazing through. They must have heard us coming or they were so wellcamouflaged in the forest.
Outside temperatures swaggered between 29F and 31F. Even in the sun it didn't warm up.
I stopped at the Medicine Wheel, a pre-historic mound of rocks that archeologists think was a symbol of inter-tribal travel and commerce. Located at 9800 this wheel is a pleasant three-mile hike r/t, a perfect leg stretcher. We arrived at 7am. I put on my winter hikers,grabbed my fleece jacket and took off for the hike.
There was definitely snow here as we scaled two snow mounds along the path (FR12). Mountain bluebirds and what looked like a groundhog chriped an chatted for us to get away. As the first people on the hike, Sadie was off-leash and enjoying the smells and freedom. The cold didn't seem to bother her.
Breath-taking views of the Big Horn Basin were on one side of the hillyop, and lush green vallies were on the other. Religious cloths were hanging on the wooden fence around the wheel, prayer beads on several posts. We let everything as is. If it weren't so coldI could have stayed longer.
Another group of women from Montana arived as I hiked back. One woman fell on the same spot I fell going out. At the parking lot at 8:20am the first two USFS personnel arrived, and then the lone archeologist assigned to the western Big Horns came in his large USFS truck, wiping coffee from the outside of his driver's side.
"The western Big Horns are full of archeology woners" he told me as he gripped his coffee mug. "Across from this mountain is a find of over 75 mounds." The problem is that no one knows for sure what everything represents. He works solo, has no crew. and drives from site to site to make sure nothing has been damaged. He used to work at two separate sites in his younger years, in Tempe and Roosevelt Lake in AZ, but he's happiest here in northern Wyoming.
"It keeps me out of the bars" he lamented. "These last three days have been the first days of summer; I've been figting wind and rain up to then." and then we bid eachother a good day and I continued on my downhill drive. I'm lucky the weather has been cooperative for me so far. This high hike would have beem miserable in rain or snow.
My breaks started to overheat. Luckily I noticed that at a rest stop, then waited ten minutes, then again another ten minutes at the next rest stop, then pulled over for 30 minutes at the third stop to let the brakes cool off. By the third stop we were almost off the mmountain and went on a short walk along an old, overgrown trail in the dry foothills.
And thus ended my 23-hour stay in the Big Horns, a lovely mountain range worth another visit.
My detour brought me on the more western slope toward Little Big Horn. I drove through the small town of Lovell, then headed north on USHighway 312 as I entered Montana at 11:30am at the small village of Frannie, an old western woman. My entry into Montana was anti-climatic. The next town was also named after a Montana settler, Bridger. The Edgar, and then I saw a sign to the "Chief Plenty Coup's State Park" and took a sharp right going east here. This I had to see. I drove for 17 miles on a gravel road with views of lush green hills, rocky hilltops, the distant mountains and rustic brown barns. So this is what Montana looked like. It looked just like eastern Wyoming!
It almost seemed expected that the first people I spoke to in Montana were from the Crow Indian reservation. One woman, Barbara Bulltail, was the granddaughter of Russell Thorntail, who in the early 1900s had to fight Montanan senators to keep land for the Crow reservation. The current senators at the time were taking more land away from the Crow.
I spent more time talking with the women than I did exploring the park itself, which preserved the house the Chief lived in. His land was given to the people as a remembrance, and now all non-state residents pay $3 and Montana residents get in free (their motor vehicle registration fees help fund the state parks). He lived in a comfortable western-still two-story home with a southern view of the mountains.
I took one of the women's suggestions for a campsite outside of Laurel, west of Billings, after a quick stop at a nearby state park, Pictograph Caves State Park. The pics here were so badly eroded I couldn't see any of them, and even other visitors commented on the same thing.
"What a shame" said one man.
"Disappointing" said another commenter on the free tour guide.
Now my quest was to find a shower as I needed one. But where was this campsite this woman had recommended? I ended up driving over 20 miles out of my way, and finally gave up and washed my hair at a rimrock overlook of the town to the north. From here one can see the three refineries. The town isn't very pretty and clearly makes its living from the oil and railroad that rides through town.
But it's a town nonetheless with all the amenities, and even has several brewpubs. The first one I encountered was "Carters" off historic Montana Avenue, and here's where I stopped for a beer.
The young bartender told me that under state law brewpubs could only stay open till 8pm because the brewer and owner, Mike, does not yet have a full beer and wine license. There is also no food served here, which meant I had to watch what I drank on an empty stomach. And by law only three pints were allowed per customer. A small chit on which the bartender kept track of the pints was given to every drinker. These are archaic laws for a state that lauds itself on its progressiveness. I don't even like to start drinking until later in the evening, so a 8pm cut-off is weird.
Kyle, a young man next to me who works as a medical lab technician for all of Montana, said this was his favorite brewpub in Billings. "There is another one that serves food, the Montana Brewing Company" but this one is my favorite. I didn't even know it was here until a friend took me to this place a year ago and I've been coming here ever since. My favorite is the Derailed!"
I tried both the Hefe and the Derailed Ale, a full-bodied ale at 6.5% alcohol, a bit strong for me.
The clientele left as the bar closed, and then it was just me, the bartender and an older man who apparently came out of nowhere to talk to me about laptops. He can't get his to work out on his ranch and wanted to know how the WiFi operates. Or perhaps that was just his come-on to me.
He was admittedly drunk. But he was likable enough. Born in South Dakota, he dropped out of high school at 16 and rode all across the country on his first Harley. Somewhere in Canada his bike broke down, and he returned to the US.
"Had I known any better, I would have continued on my ride" he said, "but I came back, finished school and rode the rest of the state." He makes his living fixing and collecting tractors, but work lately hasn't been that good. He's been trying to sell his business but hasn't gotten any buyers.
Dan Dooley is his name, a 66-year-old rough-looking man who lives on his own land east of Billngs. He still rides his "scooter" across the country and at night he simply throws out his sleeping bag for the night. So to him, my vancamping is not totally unheard of, but for a woman, very unusual. I never saw myself as being on an unusual journey.
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