Wyoming Valley Road Trip Loop

After two nights at Shell Creek Campground with no hook-ups of any kind, we headed down the road to a new location. We certainly didn't need any electricity for air-conditioning during our cool stay in the mountains. We loved having such cool temperatures in the middle of the summer! Our moving day started with a two-mile drive down a dirt forest service road.

We left our campground at 7,639 feet in elevation, and headed steeply down on Highway 14. In just 13 miles, we dropped down into the tiny town of Shell, Wyoming, at just 3,400 feet in elevation. That drive took us through Shell Canyon, where the narrow highway was boxed by the rocky canyon walls on the left, and Shell Creek on the right. No room for error when Mark was  driving our big motor home down this road.

We immediately started missing our cool mountain temperatures and all the moose sightings in the lush green Bighorn Mountains. At the lower elevation, we noticed that the landscape was browner and warmer. We dropped the motor home off at a rest area outside of Greybull, Wyoming, and then used the pickup for a loop road trip. Now in Wyoming valley country, we had exchanged our mountains for green agricultural fields. The biggest building we have seen in a while showed up on this loop, and we wondered what they were processing and shipping out on so many railroad cars?

It's the Coors High Country Barley Mill, where they were shipping out one of their key ingredients for beer. We discovered that this agricultural valley was growing barley for beer, and also lots of beets for sugar.

Our road trip loop took us through the town of Worland for lunch, then the tiny community of Ten Sleep for a farmer's market stop, and on to the edge of the Cloud Peak Scenic Byway. We parked the pickup and headed up the Salt Lick Trail.

It was a steep trail at first, and we were sweating from all that exertion. It was all the way up into the 70s this afternoon, and we're not used to that kind of hiking heat. Once we got up on the side of the mountain, the trail circled the peak. We were looking for shade this afternoon, not sure if this undulating hike around a peak was worth the effort and heat.

In this desert-like climate, Denisa was missing all her mountain wildflowers. The only flowers she saw today was a few cactus blooms.

We were thinking that we wouldn't give this hike a very good rating, when we saw a little spur trail that gained elevation quickly. Suddenly we were up higher, and could see out over the surrounding landscape.

We had made it to the top! This hike definitely earned a higher rating as we wandered up to another of God's wonders.

Mark zoomed in on Denisa, standing right at the edge of the top plateau.

With the picture above as a clue, can you find her in the picture below? Now you can see how big that white cliff side was!

We love the big vistas and the steep cliff sides, and this boring hike unexpectedly gave us both of those. Then we had to face the very steep hike down the mountain, with some parts of the trail not well marked. It was while we were going down one of those less clearly marked sections that we startled a rattlesnake. It definitely startled us when that sinister rattling started. It's hot enough and the right environment for rattlesnakes down here--another reason that we like the cool mountains.

After making a wide detour around that rattlesnake, we hiked back to the pickup. Then we were back on our road trip loop. We found ourselves on dirt roads to finish most of this side of the loop as we headed towards Hyattville, Wyoming. We knew we were in rural Wyoming when we had two farm pigs cross the road in front of us. These weren't feral hogs that we have seen before, but domesticated pigs waddling between the house and the barn.

We finished the 120-mile loop that took us back to the town of Greybull where we had left the motor home. By evening, we were joined by five RVs and a couple trucks for our overnight stay at the rest stop in the valley. We were blessed with a cool evening, but we have to say that we were looking forward to a camp site with full hook-ups at our next stop after this Wyoming Valley Road Trip Loop.