OurNextStop: Fabulous Sunday

We are in Ten Sleep, WY for a few days. We took a day and decided to tour the area. What a great day we had. Ten Sleep is a small town of about 300 residents between Buffalo on I-90 and Yellowstone, our next destination. So on that AM we left the RV at the campground and took off north in the Jeep. Immediately outside of Ten Sleep the road turned to gravel, not uncommon out here. It was good road and scenery just kept getting better. The map showed about 20 miles of this road before reaching Hyattville, WY. But, about 10 miles into the trip there was a sign pointing to the east saying there was a canyon road.

Road out of town!

This was BLM land (Bureau of Land Management) and we decided to take the side trip. Went through a narrow canyon with some RV and campers widely dispersed in the area and eventually the road ended at Renner Reservoir. A small spring fed lake with crystal clear water. More about that little jewel in the next post.

Narrow canyon road to the reservoir

We returned to the main road and continued on to Hyattville, population 47, and hit paved road. We turned west and went about 20 miles to Basin and then north a little to Greybull, population about 1300, the largest city we saw that day and where we stopped for lunch.

After lunch we headed east on US 14 towards the mountains. We were thinking of going thru the pass and 9600 ft and on to Sheridan, about 100 miles east and a little north. Shell. a the small town, population 50, right at the base of the Big Horn Mountains on US 14.

Dinosaur Track National Monument main track area

Dinosaur Track National Monument canyon narrows

Shortly before Shell there was a gravel road leading to the Dinosaur Track Park about 5 miles down a gravel road. At that site they unearthed dinosaur tracks along what was a beach about 160 million years ago. The whole "scene" had been preserved in time. You could see the ripples in what had been the sand and various tracks left by a number of 3 toed dinosaurs. It was now of course all hard rock in a gulch. BLM had done a nice job of making the site accessible and preventing damage. We met a volunteer that worked at the site explaining it. There is another volunteer job we would be interested in after we do Alaska next summer!!

We continued on US 14 thru Shell and started the climb to the pass. Shell was about 4300 ft and the pass was at 9600 ft. As we started the climb we entered the canyon and on the north side of the road was Shell Creek. at the beginning, it was only 20 or 30 ft below the road, but that distance increased the further we went. At one point we stopped in a pull-off and hiked down to the creek, which was pretty fast moving, but not raging like it is in the Spring with the thaw in process. At about 5500 ft we reached Shell Falls. National Park service had set up some trails and viewing sites to look at the Falls which were created several million years ago when the earth had shifted and the rock path of the creek had dropped about 75 ft, while the rock plate about had not!

A "sentinel" at entrance to Shell Creek Canyon!

Entrance to Shell Creek canyon

Shell Creek

Cooling my heels in Shell Creek

Shell Falls at 8500 ft in the Big Horn Range

We decided it was getting too late to continue on to Sheridan, still about 60 miles away so reluctantly turned around and headed back. When we got to the turn-off for the Dinosaur Track we took it as the map showed a WY Scenic Byway back to Hadly. What a scenic byway this gravel road was. We were riding along a high ridge (Potato Ridge) heading south. The road was gravel and in great condition. We could easily and comfortably do 50 mph or so on it! It was about 35 miles to Hadly. At about the 20 mile point the road went to hell in a hand basket! We could see the landscape change to ignacious rock as we approached. And it was the surface of the road and very, very rocky and uneven. At some points the road was barely discernible thru the rocks! We could do no more then 15 mph at best, usually less. BJ of course was no longer a happy camper. At one point there was a guy on his motor cycle taking a break. The bike was loaded with camping gear so we assumed he was out for the weekend.

We asked him how much further this hell road continued and his answer was vauge and not reassuring. But, we pressed on and in about another mile we were out of it. It was about a 4 mile stretch. Then back to the beautiful scenery from high on the ridge line. When we got to Hyattville we opted not to take the gravel road of this AM, but went about 5 miles east and took a paved road back to Ten Sleep. Got back there about 8PM. We had been gone 11 hr and covered 180 beautiful miles.