The land of Bison and the Broncos

After our town day in Laramie we spent the next day traveling to Saratoga. On the way we stopped in Medicine Bow National Forest for a short 5 mile hike to Medicine Bow Peak. It was a nice way to break up the drive with beautiful views, which I have yet to get tired of seeing.

 view from the parking lot

Almost to the top

at the top!

We went to Saratoga for one thing... the hobo hot springs. It's a 24hr hot spring that is maintained by the city, has bathrooms and showers. It was wonderful. It's also right next to a river so when we got too hot from the 106 degree hot spring we took a dip in the river. We met a lovely older couple that did what we are doing, minus the rock climbing and backpacking. They traveled the world for 10 years before he felt like he wanted to stop and use his hands to make things. They are now retired and do short travels. It made me wonder how long we will travel before the desire to set down roots hits.

 the hot springs had two pools, this was the hotter one

the slightly cooler pool

We drove to a campsite in Riverton that was amazing! There were about 4-5 sites with picnic tables and bathrooms surrounding a lake. We had a large spot to ourselves for a while. I had a very strong urge to skinny dip. I made an attempt but someone drove by and parked close enough along the lake that I had to get dressed. Boo. So we put on our swimsuits and swam a bit. We got a neighbor later in the evening but he was a solo traveler who was quiet and kept to himself.

 view of the lake from the car

In the morning we headed to Cody, making our way to Yellowstone. On the way we drove through Thermopolis, stopping at the Legends Rock Petroglyph site. We also saw a father and son playing with plastic swords in the front yard through Thermopolis which made us very happy. We found a very cool spot in Cody overlooking the city, and with an impressively stacked fire ring.

One of many cool petroglyphs

nicely stacked fire ring

The next day we were in Yellowstone, with the first order of business to acquire a campsite. Matthew did some quick math and determined it would actually make more sense for us to just pay for a site than to travel the 3 extra hours per day to camp for free. Once that was done we went exploring. Our first stop was the Lone star geyser. It's a 5 mile walk to the geyser, we got there as it was towards the end of an eruption. That was exciting because we just went having no idea if we would see it erupt. On the way back we ran which felt really good, it's so easy to run on flat ground when you are used to hiking mountains.

 I think this was called cascade falls, it was at the parking area to hike to Lone star geyser

 Lone star erupting and cute guy showing off his chest

We spent the rest of the day near Old Faithful. When we got to the parking lot it felt like parking at an amusement park. We wandered over to the geyser and heard whispers from others around us that we had about 30 minutes until it was to go off. We wandered around a little, got ice cream, then watched Old Faithful erupt. After that we wandered some more around the boardwalk. We don't know how long the walk was but in the area were 50+ geysers. By the time we got back to camp it was 9:30 pm and we went right to bed.

Old faithful geyser 

Castle geyser, this sucker went off for at least an hour

We woke the next morning at 6:55 am to get dressed and moving. It was an attempt to see some things before it got crazy. I'll just show you photos of the day. That evening we were unable to get a campsite before they filled so we camped outside of the park. We got lucky and got free wifi at the only visitor center that offers it free and I found a spot only 10 minutes out.

 First photo of the day, I was still half asleep. This is at Black sand basin

 My favorite pool, Sapphire pool.

 Grand Prismatic spring from an overlook you can hike to

Mud pots, basically boiling mud.

Canary springs at mammoth springs

Terraces at mammoth springs

campsite for the evening

On the third day we saw a few more things, went on a short hike and left. We could have easily spent more time doing hikes, unfortunately due to fires in Montana and Idaho the air quality was not great for Matthews asthma. We will likely go back some time when there are no fires to make up for the lack of hiking.

Why did the bison cross the river? to get to his buddies on the other side! 

Sulphur Caldron... very stinky 

Dragons breath at the Mud volcano area 

hike along pelican creek

One of the best shots I got of a bison before we left

We went south to the Grand Tetons. We found a free campsite in the national forest next to the national park and spent a day projecting. I did a lot of small projects mainly fixing things and Matthew did a lot of sewing for his no plastic/synthetics backpacking project.

The following day we did a 14.8 mile hike around two lakes and to Grand View Point. Unfortunately the wildfire in Idaho and Montana are sending a lot of smoke our way and the views are not clear of the Tetons. The hike was gorgeous, we started by going through a bunch of wildflower fields. It took us a while to really get moving because we kept stopping to look at all the plants. It was a fairly easy hike since most of it was fairly flat.

View from one of the lakes 

 Grand tetons in the smoky distance from Grand view point

Looking at the lakes from Grand view point

The next day we returned to the same area to do a short 6.5 mile hike around one of the lakes. Matthew wants to try going barefoot more and the trails here nice for trying. It's mostly dirt with only a few short spots that are rocky. We started the hike barefoot. I lasted about 1.5 miles and was done with it. It wasn't too bad but it was chilly and my feet were cold making the pain a little worse. Matthew managed to stay barefoot for most of the hike, only giving in about half to one mile before the end. This was impressive since he went about 3 miles barefoot the day before.

Only photo I took that day

Now we are in Jackson Wyoming eating my belated birthday pie at a coffee shop. I'm going to do some research on these fires and decide where to go next. We'll likely stay here until the eclipse though, doing more hikes.

Huckleberry pie for breakfast! Wooot!!