City Campground, Spearfish, SD

Some friends told us we should stop here for a night on our way to Custer, so we did. Spearfish City Campground is a pretty park right in town, with lots of trees and a creek running through it. They have 66 full hookup sites, but they are way too close together for our liking. The dry camping area is anywhere on the grass you want to park, which was a bit strange. There are scattered picnic tables and fire rings, but no specific sites. For this privilege we are paying $20 and change.Too much, but we got lucky and parked in a private spot right on the creek.

 

The DC Booth Historic Fish Hatchery and the City Park are just outside the campground. The fish hatchery is actually very nice, similar to the one at Bonneville Dam.

Yesterday we drove through the Black Hills National Forest along the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Highway. We stopped and did a couple hikes, one along Iron Creek.

 

And another mile to Roughlock Falls, where they filmed the final scenes of Dances With Wolves. It was a beautiful trail and waterfalls.

 

We also continued our drive through Deadwood and Sturgis, just to see what they were like. We thought Deadwood was going to be another Tombstone, but it didn’t look quite that hokey. Sturgis, on the other hand, was not too desirable. The main street was lined with saloons and tattoo parlors, just like you would expect for a big Harley town. The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally begins August 9th. Over a half million are expected to attend. Want to be well out of the area before then!

The Spearfish Festival of the Arts begins today at the City Park, just a short walk out of the campground, so we imagine it will get pretty crowded here. Luckily there is a paved bike trail running through the campground and into town, so we won’t have to take the car out. We are impressed with South Dakota so far.

Devils Tower National Monument, WY

Most people recognize Devils Tower from the movie Close Encounters of the  Third Kind. It was actually the country’s first national monument, declared by President Theodore Roosevelt in September 1906. I must admit this park was not on our list of “must go” places, but I’m glad we didn’t bypass it. We spent a great day there yesterday, picnicking and hiking around the tower.

It stands over 1200 feet above the Belle Fourche River and is quite a site to behold. The top is the size of a football field. Geologists still aren’t exactly sure how it was formed, but it is igneous rock and was possibly the cone of an ancient volcano. My eyes always start to glaze over when they go into all that detail at the visitor center displays.

We hiked the Red Beds trail, a 3 mile loop around the base. The views of the red cliffs contrasting against the green of the fields and trees were outstanding.

We then detoured another mile so we could walk through the “prairie dog town”, our favorite part of the hike. These little guys were everywhere, and it was hard to walk since the trail was full of their holes.

Most of them would not let us get close, being warned by the “guards” who stood at the top of the burrow and barked, which sounded more like a screeching bird. There were signs telling people not to feed them, and we wondered how you would even get close enough to feed them, when we were approached by this guy, who obviously was fed by many folks who disobeyed the signs.

   

We also drove through the campground, which wasn’t too bad, but we were glad we didn’t stay there. Too crowded and most of the sites did not look level or long enough.

One other thing I should mention is that they allow climbing up the tower, and we saw a few of them going up as we were hiking. We are happy staying on the ground, though. Devils Tower was a nice place to visit but we were glad to come back to our private, quiet site on the water at Keyhole State Park, where we are just hanging out and relaxing today.

  

Sitting Bull Campground, WY, Keyhole State park, Moorcroft, WY

 

We spent last night in the Bighorn National Forest at the Sitting Bull Campground, elevation 8,600 ft. It is quite a drive along Rt.16, also called the Cloud Peak Skyway, between Ten Sleep and Buffalo, WY. Again we unhooked the car at around 5,000 feet as we were only 12 miles away and still had 3,600 feet of climbing to go.

Sitting Bull is a very nice campground, many of the sites have beautiful views of the meadow and mountains, but those were all taken so we got a site in the woods. It was $14/night with no hookups, but all the mosquitoes you could want! Also, we were looking to get cooler, and we sure did accomplish that. It was 68 and cloudy when we arrived, and started raining shortly after. The temperature dropped to 58, and never got much higher the rest of the afternoon. We did a short hike with lots of bug spray, which did keep the mosquitoes off. We had absolutely no cell signal or internet, and Jim said if the sun wasn’t out in the morning we were leaving. Woke up to more clouds, 42 degrees, and the threat of rain today, so off we went. Never even took a picture of the place.

Didn’t hook the car up for about 20 miles, as we still hadn’t reached the 9,666 ft Powder River pass. It was a very long, steep descent, but the views of Ten Sleep Canyon were lovely.

We ended up at Keyhole State Park, near Moorcroft, WY, in the Pronghorn campground. Got a great site right on a small bay, no bugs, and warmer but not too hot. There are no hookups and it is $17/night.

We are only 25 miles from Devils Tower National Monument, so we will take a drive there tomorrow.

Eagle RV Park, Thermopolis,WY

We ended up driving on to Thermopolis yesterday, after stopping at 3 of the campgrounds in Boysen State Park along the way. It was hot and sunny, already in the mid 80’s by late morning, and the campgrounds just weren’t that great looking, especially for $17/night with no hookups. So we landed at Eagle RV Park in Thermopolis and enjoyed the air conditioning, as it got in the low 90’s. We payed $30 for the privilege, but it was worth it.

The drive through Wind River Canyon from Shoshoni to Thermopolis was lovely, as it followed the river most of the way.

Thermopolis’ claim to fame is their hot springs, so we visited Hot Springs State Park to see what it was all about.

There is a walkway through the terraces, reminiscent of Yellowstone, and a swinging bridge across the Big Horn River.

There is a free State Bath House, where you can soak in the hot mineral water pools for free. Not our cup of tea to get in a soaking pool with strangers in water that smells like rotten eggs! But that’s just us.

Today we will try to find a forest service campsite in Ten Sleep Canyon, about 80 miles east, where the elevation is over 8,000 ft and it should be cooler.

Sinks Canyon State Park, Lander, WY

We are at Sinks Canyon State Park in the Popo Agie campground after a beautiful 165 mile drive Wednesday. We crossed the Continental Divide at Towigee Pass, over 9,600 ft elevation. We unhooked the car around 7000 ft which allowed Jim to make it up and down the pass in the rig a bit easier. l also enjoy driving the car on those kinds of winding mountain roads more than I do being a passenger.

We heard about Sinks Canyon from a nice couple parked next to us at Gros Ventre. They were also from Florida, had sold their house, and been on the road for 2 years. They said they had a beautiful campsite here, right on the Popo Agie River. Unfortunately, the one site on the river long enough for us was too unlevel. We tried our best but no matter which way we pulled in, nor how many Lynx levelers we used, it was impossible to even get close to being level. So we are at a nice site a little farther from the river but we can still hear the rushing water. Jim was pretty patient with me trying to get us level at the other site, but he really, really would like to get automatic levelers.

This park has no dump, no hookups, vault toilets, and a couple water spigots(but you can’t hook a hose to them), for $11/night. We learned our lesson a couple weeks ago when we left Flaming Gorge and thought we’d spend a night at an RV park on the way to the Tetons. Our water tank was almost empty, but we decided we didn’t need to add any since we’d be hooked up that night. Without calling ahead for a reservation we couldn’t get a site, and there was nothing else to choose from. We did pass several Forest Service campgrounds we could have stopped at but none of them had water. From now on we will be sure to have at least a quarter tank or more on travel days .We are slow learners.

More on Sinks Canyon. The Popo Agie River here flows into an underground limestone cavern at the Sinks, and emerges 1/4 mile down the canyon in a pool named the Rise. Really fascinating. This is the cavern opening.

There is quite a bit of water flowing into it.

The Rise, which flows into a deep trout pool, and doesn’t look like nearly as much water coming out as what went in.

Yesterday we hiked a few miles along the Canyon trail, right behind the campground, which follows the river.

I had a request from a friend for a picture of Quincy, as Oreo tends to be the center of attention in our house. Since our only wildlife sighting was a dead baby deer on the trail, here is our very own “mountain lion”. Not a good picture but he wasn’t being too cooperative.

Today we’re heading up the road about 60 miles to Boysen State Park.

Last Days in Grand Teton NP

Just had a few more photos to post. We’ve seen more owls, which are such fun to watch, and female moose, which aren’t nearly as impressive as the males.

Yesterday we hiked around Jenny Lake to Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point, then about another mile up the Cascade Canyon trail until we realized we were looking at a 7 mile round trip hike, about our comfort limit. Glad we turned around when we did, as we were pretty tired by the end. You can also take a boat across the lake, then it is only a half mile to Hidden Falls instead of two and a half, and another four tenths of a mile to Inspiration Point. That section of trail was jam packed with families doing the short hike. Luckily there weren’t many people on the other sections.

We saw several marmots along the trail but that was it for wildlife.

Tomorrow we are heading east on our way to Custer, SD, where we actually have reservations on July 18th. One more picture of our resident “wildlife”, Oreo, relaxing in his chair.

More Grand Teton National Park

Hard to believe we’ve been here over a week now. There is so much to see, so many trails to hike. We drove the entire park loop, which runs along the Snake River, then comes back along Jackson and Jenny Lakes. Checked out the other campgrounds in the park, and we definitely picked the right one. Colter Bay is huge like Gros Ventre, but the sites are all pull-offs and close together, so it looked like a bad RV park. The nicest one was Signal Mountain, which had some sites right on Jackson Lake, but most of them were too short. The limit was 30’ and we didn’t see many sites we could fit in. There was a small picnic area in the campground, so we stopped for lunch and a lovely view.

We also took the 5 mile drive up Signal Mountain Road, which climbs to 7700 ft and had several short trails to more lake views.

Then we stopped and hiked the String Lake trail, a 3.3 mile loop. There were lots of people out on canoes and kayaks. We’ve been fortunate to have such good weather this week.

We did go back into Jackson for laundry and groceries. It was a zoo again, horrible traffic and people everywhere. There is no Wal-Mart here, but an Albertson’s, a nice Smith’s, and Jackson Whole Grocery, a more expensive version of Trader Joe’s and also very nice. We ate lunch at Mountain High Pizza Pie, which was very disappointing, both in the service and the food. We won’t be back.

Yesterday we went to the Laurance S.Rockefeller Preserve, part of Grand Teton National Park. In the late 1920’s, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. started buying up ranches adjacent to the Grand Tetons, with the intent to donate the land to the National Park Service. They kept part of it for a family retreat, but his son Laurance donated the rest of the property in 2001. The hiking trails opened in 2007, and the Interpretive Center in June 2008. It is quite an impressive structure, with a very nice library. There are 10 miles of hiking trails on the preserve.

As we started up the trail, a woman told  us she saw 2 bears along the way. These and a few rodents were all we saw.

It is a beautiful and peaceful place to visit. The parking lot is small to limit the number of people who can be there at one time, which made for very few people on the trails.

 

The preserve is located along Moose-Wilson Road, which goes to Teton Village, so we continued on a few more miles to check it out. That is where they have the gondola going up to the mountain for hiking in the summer and skiing in the winter. They were having a classic car auction, so Jim was happy.

Last night we were treated to this beautiful sunset over the Tetons.

 

We’ve been sitting here this morning watching many of our neighbors pack up to go home and feeling thankful we have nowhere to go. Today we will join our Lazy Daze friends for a 4th of July picnic. Life is pretty good.