Rockies Caravan - Part 9 - Buffalo & Devils Tower - STR-2021-35
Friday, 10 September
Kris woke up feeling much better. Well enough she asked to enjoy the breakfast across the street that we did yesterday.
For a change, we did not hit the road at sun up - we lingered doing some chores before departing. The caravan itinerary was to reposition to Buffalo, WY. Naturally, Sprinty compared the suggested routes with some other options including a side excursion to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana. After some deliberation, we settled on traveling via the Bighorn Scenic Byway, which runs from Greybull to Rochester, WY. It is one of three Wyoming scenic byways that traverse the Bighorn Mountain Range.
As we traveled east from Cody, we turned on US hwy 14 in Greybull. The Bighorn Scenic Byway includes miles of scenic mountain driving and roadside turnouts overlooking spectacular valleys. On the western end of the Big Horn Scenic Byway, Shell Creek Canyon and Shell Falls provide some of the most spectacular scenery along the route.
An online description said "The 120-foot plunge of Shell Falls is accompanied by nature trails and interpretive signs. The site is open 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily from mid-May through mid-September."
When we arrived at the Shell Creek Rest Stop, we found the rest stop closed. Perhaps the National Forest Service considers 10 September as "mid-September?" We, and several others, pulled off on nearby pullouts and walked to the falls viewing points.
We enjoyed a very scenic drive. Above 7,500 feet on the west side of the summit, the Aspens were already turning golden yellow. We saw some color changes in other plants as well - a reminder that summer is coming to an end.
We arrived at the KOA Buffalo campground in Buffalo, WY before mid-afternoon, earlier than any other repositioning day. While Kris wanted to play golf, she thought it best to take it easy for one more day.
Saturday, 11 September
Another relaxing start to the day which included a walk around the park with Darrell (H) and Brenda. We decided to depart for downtown early, all of 1.5 miles away, to get a parking place and wander the downtown area. Us and about a dozen other caravan folks had the same idea to skip the 10:15 lineup to caravan such a short distance.
At 10:30, the group filed into the Occidental Hotel where Jennifer, the historian (and operator of the Virginian restaurant), shared the history of the Occidental Hotel. The original Occidental Hotel was founded in 1880 at the foot of the Big Horn mountains near the Bozeman Trail.
While half the group did the tour of the hotel with Jennifer, the owner, David Stewart, shared his involvement with the Occidental. David Stewart is a singer songwriter with three of his songs having gone gold. Fascinating story of restoring the Occidental to its former glory and the guests who stay in the hotel.
After our tour through the museum, we made our way to the Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum about a block away. In the spring of 1900, Pharmacist Theodore James Gatchell, better known as Jim, opened the first drugstore in Johnson County. The Buffalo Pharmacy became a popular stopping place for cowboys, lawmen, settlers, cattle barons, and famous Army scouts.
Jim became a trusted friend to the region's Native Americans, local residents, and those that passed through town. Many of those that befriended Jim brought him several gifts over the years. From guns to medicine bags, bow and arrows to clothing, those gifts now help tell Jim's incredible story inside the Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum.
We were given a tour of the museum by Jennifer (different Jennifer). On the tour, we learned more about the Johnson County cattle war. The war was not about cattle vs sheep as sometimes portrayed. Wyoming was and is a free range and a fence-out state. The conflict was between the large cattle barons who drove their cattle to Canada each year and benefited from the free range in Wyoming to graze their cattle. The homesteading of Wyoming and its fence-out policies resulted in homesteaders fencing their properties to keep cattle out of their fields.
Note: Recall the lesson we learned at the Barbed Wire Museum - barbed wire was invented and became the wire that tamed the West because it was used to fence out animals.
The cattle war had a significant event at the TA Ranch located just south of Buffalo. The TA Ranch now features a Farm-to-Table restaurant.
The museum was well curated and worthy of spending some time visiting. Our tour of the Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum was pretty quick, and did not allow much opportunity to really look at the exhibits. Later we realized why - the museum is normally closed on Saturdays in winter - they had opened just for us and, because of a mixup, our groups did not show up at the museum at the time they expected. Darrell (VH) circled back to look at several exhibits closer, only to be chased out as they were turning out the lights. Just another thing to look forward to on a future trip.
As luck would have it, today was also Octoberfest in Crazy Woman Square. It featured some traditional German food, beer, live band, and many vendors and attractions. One activity was to use a large pull saw to cut a pine "beer coaster" from a log. Darrell (H) took at turn.
After the Octoberfest, we headed for the Mountain Meadow Wool Mill located on the east side of Buffalo. The Mill is the only mill in the United States that does the entire process from shorn raw wool to the beautifully hand dyed finished yarn end product. The tour is self-guided with several videos describing the process. On the upper mezzanine, we could look down on the production floor to see how wool is washed, dried, combed, spun and hand dyed. Late on Saturday afternoon, only one person was working - it looked like he was setting up the machine to take the combed wool and spin into yarn.
While at the Mill, we saw this poster on the wall:
Sunday, 12 September
We woke up to 41 degrees, about 12 degrees colder than any of our weather apps forecast. Our Alde heating system did well. And Brenda and Darrell (H)'s heater worked on the first try. Maybe cleaning the electrical contacts a few days ago helped.
Today was a fairly short reposition to Devils Tower, WY, all of about 130 miles away. 130 miles of mostly arid grasslands, with the city of Gillette, WY about halfway to break the trip up. We left early knowing we would likely arrive before the campground would allow checkin.
We broke the trip up with a stop in Gillette for a couple of grocery items.
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| From the National Monument entrance |
As we ate lunch just outside the National Monument, we watched the line of cars entering. After a quick bite, we ventured in to Devils Tower National Monument, expecting that parking was going to be like Yellowstone on the weekend. As we entered the Monument, the Ranger warned us that parking was limited and to be patient.
Arriving at the parking area, it was overflowing with Rangers ticketing anyone parked improperly. Surprisingly, we would have been more successful parking had we driven Sprinty up - there was an available space in the RV parking, where the car parking was jam packed. Unable to find a parking place after two passes through the parking areas, we went to Plan B - which was formed only a minute before getting to the parking area. We had seen a sign to a Tower Scenic Overlook up a gravel road. The gravel road led to the trailhead for the Joyner Ridge Trail where where we could park the Honda.
Making up our plan minute by minute, we decided to hike the 1.5 mile Joyner Ridge Trail loop. We were rewarded with a nice trail leading through Ponderosa pine trees, through some rock outcropping, down into a canyon and back. A very nice hike with some great views of the north side of Devils Towers.
By now it was about 1:30pm so we decided to try for a parking place again. What a difference 90 minutes makes. While the parking lot was just about full, we were able to get a parking place on the first loop through.
The Visitor Center was small and did not offer anything of interest. Other than a view of the monument
and the elevation sign - Kris is busting out laughing because I told her to stand on her tippy toes so she would be in the photo.
We then hiked the Tower Trail, a paved loop trail that circumnavigated the base of the tower. The trail has been improved recently with new interpretive signs.
The National Monument map showed the hike as 1.3 miles long. AllTrails showed the hike as 1.7 miles long. Our Apple Watches sided with AllTrails.
From the Monument brochure: Several Indian nations share similar legends on the origin of this prominent view. The Kiowa people say:
"Eight children were there to play, seven sisters and their brother. Suddenly the boy was struck dumb; he trembled and began to run upon his hands and feet. His fingers became claws, and his body was covered with fur. Directly there was a bear where the boy had been. The sisters were terrified; they ran, and the bear after them. They came to the stump of a great tree, and the tree spoke to them. It bade them to climb upon it, and as they did so it began to rise into the air. The bear came to kill them, but they were just beyond its reach. It reared against the tree and scored the bark all around with his claws. The seven sisters were born into the sky, and they became the stars of Pleiades."
As we walked around the Tower, the different views and changing sky provided several different views of the tower.
After our hikes, we headed back to the Devils Tower/Black Hills KOA located about 200 feet from the entrance to the National Monument. We had a quiet afternoon. As luck would have it, the Hesses were parked next to us, which made it convenient for a couple of projects.
The KOA shows the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" every night. Steven Spielberg's sci-fi classic, released in 1977 was filmed on the campground. After seeing the screen was just a large TV and with temperatures falling into the 50s, we elected not to watch the movie.
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