It feels great to be on the road again.
It does not matter how many times I take this trip — a route we’ve unofficially dubbed the Northern Bighorn Loop — each expedition brings something fresh and new to bear. There are the icons I’ll never tire of: Steamboat Point, rising from the rock like a great ship run aground; Porcupine Falls, with its thundering cascade and epic splash pool, a favored mountain escape for generations; and the highway itself, where the Bighorn Scenic Byway becomes the Medicine Wheel Scenic Passage, offering up stunning panoramas of the mountains, opportunities to spot the biggest game in the Bighorns, and countless dirt tracks that splinter off toward some new, unknown adventure. And then there are the lesser-known destinations, the hidden gems, and that which is mostly undiscovered. There is the rugged splendor of Bucking Mule Falls; the mystic iconography of the ancient Medicine Wheel; and the remnants of the old gold-fever town, Bald Mountain City. This is to say nothing of the pastoral charm of the foothills, the small towns that lay nestled in the crooks of the mountain, like Dayton, Ranchester and Shell, and the wild playgrounds that are closer than most of us think, like the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area, and the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range. It is enough to make any wanderlust-loving traveler’s head spin.
There is so much to take in on any road trip up and over the Bighorn Mountains. You could spend a single day at any of these destinations and feel like you still have not seen all there is to see. You could chase the history of the tie hackers down a dozen different rivers or engage legendary outlaws at half a dozen forgotten outposts. For our part, we are all about covering miles on this trip — we want to watch as the ponderosa pine and alpine meadows of Sheridan County transform to the rocky, iron-striped desert mesas of Big Horn County. We do what little planning we think is necessary at Bison Union Coffee Shop, in the heart of Downtown Sheridan, which is always a good excuse to grab some coffee thick enough to prop up a pocket knife, then head out to saddle up our mechanical bull with all the necessary provisions. It’s time to hit the road.
The hustle and bustle of daily life seem trivial when set against such natural wonder.
It’s a misty, low-hanging cloud kind of day, and we’re worried for a moment that we won’t get to see many of the big landscapes that we plan to see. But by the time we crest Cutler Hill and pass Sibley Lake, the clouds have broken, and it is a blue bird day. There is a saying out here that if you don’t like the weather, just wait a minute, and if you’ve ever spent a day in the Bighorns, you know this to be true. We left behind sweltering foothills heat for perfect 70-degree temps, and I’m struck by that invigorating feeling I get every time I come up onto the mountains. Gone are the worries of the day; the hustle and bustle of daily life seem trivial when set against such natural wonder. It’s a feeling I hope everyone is able to experience when they visit Wyoming.
We experience some of that famous weather early on. It’s June, which means it’s still wintry in some parts of the high country. We’re stopped in our tracks about 5 miles from Porcupine Creek, which doesn’t do anything to dampen our mood — we simply retool and prepare to spend more time discovering destinations we’ve yet to explore. It does not really matter that we don’t “accomplish” what we set out to do — the goal from the beginning was to enjoy the journey.
We feel safe out here, as distant from the rest of the world as we want to be.
And we do just that. We enjoy the great outdoors and the historic attractions that this trip offers up, but we also enjoy chatting with locals in our own town, as well as those around the mountain — business owners appreciate the patronization, and they see good things on the horizon for the travel industry. Wyoming’s travel and tourism economy shut down swiftly when the pandemic swept through in March, but because of the sacrifices people have made here, we’ve been fortunate to open up sooner than most states. We hear time and again that we’re headed in the right direction, and we know that COVID case numbers are reclining rapidly. What is certain is the sense of optimism present in nearly all the folks we meet along the way.
What is also clear is how lucky we are to live in this wild, untamed place. Some of the most epic stops on our journey haven’t seen more than a few souls all summer — instead of fighting off crowds at the overlook at Bighorn Canyon, we’re set against the swirling wind of a sudden storm and the grand scope of the towering canyon walls. When we spy a coyote in the hills near Steamboat Point, then a cow and calf moose at Burgess Junction, we don’t have to stop traffic to get a look at the local wildlife, because there is so little traffic in the first place. And rather than waiting in line at dawn for a campsite to open at a national park, we have the run of Devil’s Kitchen to ourselves, just in time to cook up a spectacular sunset. We feel safe out here, as distant from the rest of the world as we want to be. There’s little doubt that this is part of Wyoming’s allure. While so much of the country is on lockdown, we are fortunate to be able to get outside and experience these wild places. But when we do see other folk on our journey, there is a sense that we’re sharing in some great, grand secret, and I’m happy that they’re sharing this experience with us.
We take a step back into history and experience Ernest Hemingway’s Wyoming firsthand.
If you’re keen to explore the wild side of Wyoming, check out The Backyard, the new streaming series from Sheridan County Travel & Tourism. The Backyard stars The Bighorn Mountains, the stomping ground of icons and outlaws, last bastion of frontier history, and playground for the wild at heat. An epic, untrammeled alpine kingdom, the Forest Service says that “no region in Wyoming is provided with a more diverse landscape — from grasslands to alpine meadows, clear lakes to glacially carved valleys, and rolling hills to sheer mountain cliffs.”
With two feet and a heartbeat our crew hikes and backpacks into uncharted territory in the Bighorn National Forest and shares the stories of some of the most iconic locations in the region. We take a step back into history and experience Ernest Hemingway’s Wyoming firsthand. We kayak pristine rivers, climb from perilous peaks, suss out outlaw history, and stargaze at the brightest night skies in America. Why? Well, because the backyard is a wild, untamed realm of endless adventure, and nowhere is adventure as front and center as it is in Wyoming.