Wind River Canyon to the Riverton Balloon Rendezvous

While we were camping in Thermopolis, Wyoming, we drove the pickup down through the Wind River Canyon just south of town. The tall canyon walls were carved by the Wind River, which still flows down the center of the gorge. We looked into taking our kayak down the river, but individuals aren't allowed to do that. You must go with a certified rafting company that has gotten a permit from the indian tribe that owns the land on both sides of the river. To the right of the river is just enough room for train tracks, and on the left is a scenic highway that we were allowed to drive.

Before entering the canyon, we stopped at the wayside park called "The Wedding of the Waters." This is where Wind River ends, and Bighorn River begins. Because of the thermal water springs in this area, this river will not freeze in the winter. Thousands of waterfowl winter here in this unique environment, including eagles that will prey on the fish and small waterfowl all winter.

While we did spot eagles still here in the summer, we were really looking for mountain sheep in these tall canyon walls along the river.

Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep once inhabited this part of Wyoming. But they have been hunted and lost their habitat until few remained. In 1995, 43 bighorn sheep were brought to live in this canyon and they have multiplied and prospered. Mark was looking up on those rocky walls, hoping to spot some sheep.

We stopped the pickup in many different pull-outs, but we never did see any of those bighorn sheep. We had to notice that it looks drier here than any place we have seen this summer. We drove the entire 19-mile length of the canyon, until the width between the walls became so narrow that there was no longer room for a highway and train tracks. So tunnels were blasted on both sides of the river so the cars and trains could continue their journeys through the canyon.

It was quite an engineering feat to support the canyon wall, while still making room for vehicles.

A series of three tunnels were made in Wind River Canyon. At the end of the canyon, the river opens up into Boyson Reservoir State Park. We might have stopped in to check out the lake, but Wyoming is one of those states that charges everyone to enter their state parks (except for Hot Springs State Park). They charge Wyoming residents $7 to enter, but non-residents must pay $12. Likewise, camping with no hook-ups for Wyoming residents is just $18.25, but non-residents pay $32.25. You must add a $10 fee for an electric site. As much as we like to visit state parks, Wyoming has priced them out of our budget.

The day after our pickup drive through Wind River Canyon, it was time for the motor home to leave going that same direction. We filled up our 90-gallon water tank before we left our full-hook-up camp site, as we would be without water hook-ups for the next nine days. We took fast showers and went into water conserving mode for over a week! In the picture below we weren't stopped in a pull-out to look for bighorn sheep this time. Instead, Mark pulled over for faster vehicles to pass us on this narrow curving road through the canyon. 

At the end of Wind River Canyon we had to go through those three tunnels, that we had noted were 14 feet tall.

Our 13-foot-tall motor home pretty well filled those tunnels top to bottom and side to side.

Our next camping spot was in Riverton, Wyoming, where we were staying at the Riverwind Casino RV Park. Pictures weren't allowed inside the casino, but they were running a promotion and wanted to take our photo with this hairy guy for some reason. We don't usually stop at casinos, but this was a cheap place to camp in an electric-only camp site. The price was reduced for people with a player's card, so we stopped in at the customer service desk to get a card and $5 in free slot play. We like to use the casino's free play money to make a little extra money.

We got some interesting weather while we were camping at the casino. But we were glad that those interesting clouds stayed west of us, and didn't interfere with the festivities we had come to see.

The reason we had come out of the mountains to hang out in the Wind River valley was the Riverton Balloon Rendezvous. While we were here for the balloons, the festival started with a car show. The main roads in town were blocked off for the classic car parade at 6:00 p.m. 

Besides classic cars, they also had races for non-motorized vehicles. This soap-box derby started on the hill on Main Street, where children and adults took turns trying to see who could get the furthest and the fastest down that hill.

We didn't see all of the parade, because we were going to the celebrity balloon speaker at the local barbecue place. In the fine print of the festival's events, it mentioned that the public was invited to hear the speaker, who was one of the hot air balloon pilots from Canada. While the restaurant was full of fellow balloon pilots, we were the only "public" that came for the very interesting talk. We learned about how his town started their own balloon festival after a "thousand-year-flood" damaged every house in town. His balloon was totaled in the flood, and he also explained how he designed and sewed a new envelope. We learned some ballooning terms--like envelope. That is the bright outside material that you most recognize when you see a hot air balloon in the air. The pilots and their crews left the barbecue restaurant so they could get set up for the candlestick on Main Street.

That's another new ballooning term that we learned. The pilots set up their baskets and their propane burners, and then blow pulses of fire without the balloon attached. Some of the pilots even allowed children to crawl into the basket and press the controls to make it burn.

Some older kids were also allowed to try their hand at candlesticking. That's when we met pilot Bob and his crew chief and wife, Kris. They were visiting Wyoming for this festival just like us, but they brought their balloon all the way from Arkansas with them. We had planned to volunteer to help with a crew, and they invited us to join them since they were here by themselves. 

That sounded great to us, so we promised to meet them at the launch field the next morning. We had planned to stay for the entire street dance, but we had to get back to the motor home and go to bed. Check in time for crew members was at 5:30 in the morning!

Free things in Thermopolis, Wyoming

Cody, Wyoming, was the most distant campground in our travels this summer. From there we headed south for the first time this summer, and drove 90 miles to our next destination at Wyoming Gardens Campground in Thermopolis. It was an expensive camping spot, but we found some free things to do in town to make up for that. This town was named after the many thermal water features that have made it famous. After getting the motor home settled into its new spot, we headed to the state park in town. In the picture below, Mark was sitting on top of the terrace of travertine limestone that had been deposited from the high-mineral hot springs.

We walked to the largest spring in Hot Springs State Park. Every day this spring flows 2.1 million gallons of water that comes out of the earth at 127 degrees.

The water runs down a channel, and then puddles on the top of the terrace where Mark was sitting. It will leave behind orange-colored pools due to the algae that are unique to this hot-temperature-high-mineral environment. A chemical analysis of the water would find 22 different minerals, so drinking this water is like taking a mineral pill. One of the most prevalent compounds is sulphate, and the odor of rotten eggs can be smelled throughout the park.

All of this hot water was flowing right next to the Bighorn River, that was filled with very cool water from the snow melt and spring rains. We had planned another free thing to do in Thermopolis--kayaking down the Bighorn River. But with all the spring rains and winter snows, the Bighorn River was flowing at an unusually swift current. The boat dock at the state park was completely under water, making another obstacle that kept us from floating down the river on our own.

We walked over the suspension bridge to get a unique view of the bank of travertine flowing down into the river.

The healing waters of the hot springs have been used by native Indians and travelers for many years. In the early 1900s, a "Teepee Fountain" was built to vent steam from the hot mineral water that was piped throughout the park. The picture below was taken in 1909 and showed how the hot mineral water flowed over the rock structure.

That water would cool, and deposit layers of the travertine. After 113 years of layer upon layer of mineral deposits, this is what the teepee now looks like in 2023. That's the same kind of travertine deposits that we saw from the bridge, and from the bench.

This state park is unique in Wyoming because it doesn't charge an admission fee. Because of a settlement with the native tribes, the state had to guarantee to make this land and the springs available to everyone for free. So we continued our free visit with a drive around the park. Our drive continued to areas where hot water no longer flows, and the travertine formations are now dry.

We drove the loop through the pasture where the state park hosts a herd of bison.

They were rolling in the dirt and swinging their tails in an effort to get rid of the flies that were harassing them.

We stopped by Hot Springs State Park Bath House, and talked to the attendant at the front desk. While we were certainly free to take a soak on this warm afternoon, she suggested that we come back in the morning since we were spending the night in Thermopolis. She knew that the warm water would feel much better at 8:00 in the morning when it was 50 degrees outside, rather than the afternoon when it was in the 80s.

We took her advice, and we were one of the first in line at 8:00 a.m. when they opened. We were there with a group of locals that show up every morning for their daily soak. They swear by the medicinal benefits of soaking in this hot mineral water. They said that it especially feels nice when it is snowing in the winter.

The water was a little warmer than the targeted 104 degrees this morning, so they had to add a little cool water to it. We tried both the outdoor and indoor pools, which were both very clean. They drain both pools every other day, so they don't have the sediment that some natural hot spring pools have. All this luxurious hot mineral bathing was also free because of the agreement with the local tribes. We were allowed twenty minutes in the pools, but that limit is just for our own safety so guests won't overheat. We were welcome to come back for more twenty-minute sessions after proper time to cool off.

One session was plenty for us. While we have gone to hot springs all over the country and Canada, we still have never paid for one. The sulfur content is high in Thermopolis, and we were ready for a good shower to get that smell off our skin. We remember as children hurrying into the water with shouts of, "Last one in is a rotten egg!" Now we've changed that to "Last one out smells like a rotten egg!" 

After cleaning up, we did a driving tour of our new home town of Thermopolis. We found a store named "Merlin's Hide Out" with a unique inventory of animal hides.

Their specialty was bison products, and they have filled a unique niche in Hollywood. They have created some of the famous bison coats worn by actors like Kurt Russell in "The Hateful Eight" and Kevin Costner in "Yellowstone." While these custom coats retail for around $3,000, a picture with one is free.

We enjoyed our short stay in Thermopolis, Wyoming--especially the free things we discovered along the way.

The Beartooth Highway - The Most Beautiful Roadway in America

The Beartooth Highway has been on our bucket list ever since we first learned about it. One of the pioneers of travel journalism, Charles Kuralt, dubbed it as "the most beautiful roadway in America." That sounds like something that we need to see for ourselves! In fact, the main reason that we came to Cody, Wyoming, was because of its proximity to this famous highway. We were waiting on the best weather day to take this long drive, and this was the day!

Part of the drive would be a repeat from two days ago. After our longer-than-planned trip into Yellowstone, we thought about sleeping in the pickup because we were at the western edge of the Beartooth Highway. But after we decided we wouldn't get much sleep in the pickup, we ended up driving back to Cody on the most westerly 13 miles of the Beartooth Highway, and then the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway. After a day of activities back in Cody, we retraced our drive up the very scenic Chief Joseph Byway again. We took a picture at the top of Dead Indian Point as the sun was setting two days ago. This time we were bright and early in the morning. From here we could see Sunlight Basin below us, surrounded by the North Absaroka Mountains and the Beartooth Mountains.

We could tell that the tourists were feeding the chipmunks at the point, because they ran towards us and begged for snacks as soon as we arrived. The chipmunks were running towards us--not the tourists.

We had a brochure that outlined the best scenic drives around Cody, so we followed its advice to take a detour up Sunlight Basin Road. We were hoping for wildlife sightings on this less-traveled gravel road. While herds of elk spend their winters in this valley, they have left for higher ground this summer.

The only animals we found on this detour was a line of horses on a dude ranch trail ride. But the views of the snow-covered peaks in the background still made the detour worthwhile.

According to the brochure, the next stop was Sunlight Creek Bridge. You can barely see her in the picture below, but Denisa was standing on the highest bridge in Wyoming

If you look to the very bottom of this picture that was taken from the bridge, you can see the Clark's Fork of the Yellowstone River that carved this 1200 foot deep gorge. This was also one of those "Where's Marky?" pictures. Can you see him among the Cathedral Cliffs?

He's in an open area in the center of the zoomed-in picture below. That will help you in the "Where's Marky?" quiz earlier.

A pedestrian lane on the bridge allows visitors to see the beautiful landscape from high above the river.

While we were watching from the pedestrian lane, we shared the Sunlight Creek Bridge with a group of motorcycles and a herd of yearling calves.

The motorcycles were going the correct way. The calves were not. We watched as the cowboy's dog turned them around and got them moving back across the bridge to their correct pasture.

We talked to the cowboy that was following up the calves across the bridge. He explained that they pastured yearlings on leased grass land in the national forest. These cattle will ship out of the mountains in October--hopefully before it starts snowing. This bridge is the dividing point of the leased grass land, and they had already spent a good part of their morning roping and trailering some cattle that had gotten past the boundary.

Chief Joseph Scenic Byway is Highway 296, and it comes to an end when it runs into Highway 212--more commonly known as Beartooth Highway, a National Scenic Byway All-American Road. The name comes from the signature peak. Do you see the pointy mountain that looks like a bear's tooth?

Denisa obviously couldn't take enough pictures of the Beartooth. Its real name is Pilot Peak, and the knob to the right is Index Peak. They were visible for miles around when looking to the west.

Our first stop on this famous highway was at Crazy Creek Falls, to get a look at the water cascading down the mountain.

You should know that we are never content to gaze at a waterfall from the bottom without attempting to climb to the top. On this hike we had our bear spray with us for the first time this summer. We were less than 15 miles from Yellowstone National Park, and the grizzlies don't have boundaries. No tenting is allowed in the campgrounds in the Beartooth Mountains. Only hard-sided RVs are allowed because of the large number of bears in the Beartooths. We got to the top of falls, where the water pooled into turquoise-blue rapids.

You can barely see "Where's Denisa?" in her pink blouse on the ledge to the left of that pool where the water cascaded on down the mountain.

We traveled east along the All-American Road, stopping at scenic viewpoints along the way. This stop provided another frothy white waterfall with just a short hike. 

Vault toilets were also provided at some of the pull-outs. Denisa has an odd hobby of taking pictures of restrooms with beautiful views. She thought this one with a clear view of the Beartooth Mountains, qualified to be added to her strange collection.

The bees were happy that the wildflowers were blooming now.

We normally would have picked out a best-rated hike for the day. But the hikes were long and they all seemed to mention grizzly bear sightings. While we had our bear spray, we didn't relish a grizzly encounter on these less-traveled trails. So instead of hiking, we decided to go kayaking. We checked out Beartooth Lake and decided it would be a great kayaking destination.

We inflated our Sea Eagle kayak, and headed straight across the lake towards Beartooth Butte. This fortress of limestone and sandstone rose above the mountain plateau.

Like Pilot Peak, it was a signature silhouette that you could see from anywhere on the lake.

Also like Pilot Peak, Denisa took way too many pictures of it. As we rowed to the right, we noticed that snow still capped the top of Beartooth Butte.

While the water got choppy in the middle of the lake, we kayaked up into the calmer waters that feed into Beartooth Lake.

It was a beautiful place to kayak, and we ran into no grizzlies this way. We were a little disappointed that we didn't run into any other wildlife either.

We couldn't decide which mountain lake we wanted to kayak, so we decided to try two. We left the Sea Eagle inflated, and strapped it onto the pickup for the three-mile trip to Island Lake.

True to its name, we rowed around the islands that emerge out of the water in the center of the lake.

Island Lake is ringed by the snow-capped Beartooth Mountains. We saw over twenty peaks over 12,000 feet in elevation in our drive today.

The clouds rolled in and the wind picked up. It was 3:30, and it looked like an afternoon rain storm was headed our way as the water formed waves on Island Lake.

We try to plan our circles around a lake where we can row against the wind first. That way the wind will blow us back to our shore when we are tired and ready to get the boat out of the water. We planned our circle correctly as we finished up our kayaking on the more-protected and less-windy side of the lake.

We dried off the kayak and noted the signs around Island Lake. The signs said, "Grizzly Bear Area--Special Rules Apply." Again, we didn't spot any bears or other wildlife at this lake.

Our next stop was Beartooth Pass, the highest motor crossing in Wyoming. We have been seeing snow from a distance, but here the drifts were right beside the highway.

The pass's elevation was 10,947 feet, and we could see a ring of 12,000-foot peaks around us. It was surprisingly cold and windy on this July afternoon.

But we were not alone on this rocky top pass. We could hear the whistles of the yellow-bellied marmots, curious to see who was visiting their home on this cloudy afternoon.

Once they got used to our presence, more marmots started peaking out of their dens. Doesn't it look like this marmot was even holding a welcoming flower?

This marmot stood straight up, so she could see us better . . .

while this marmot laid flat and tried to ignore us. We might not see any grizzly bears on Beartooth pass, but we hit the jackpot in marmot sightings.

Standing on the top boulder at the pass, we could see the winding roads that brought us to the highest pass in a very high state.

The GPS screen shows that Highway 212 was not good for anyone that might get car sick on winding roads.

Looking out over the snow-capped peaks, we saw that the afternoon storm was bringing rain to our west.

This highway is closed all winter, and drivers anticipate its opening each spring. Snow plows worked to move the snow to the side, where the drifts remain all summer. This year, Wyoming Department of Transportation announced that the Beartooth Highway opened on May 26, 2023.

After the summit, our trip was downhill all the way. We stopped to eat a snack in front of another beautiful Beartooth view.

We stopped at one more viewpoint while we were at the top of the "most beautiful roadway in America." Snow never melts in this bowl, and snow skiers come here to the Beartooth Summer Ski Basin.

When other ski mountains were closing for the season, the summer basin was opening. We zoomed in to see the chair lift that runs to the top of the slope.

We took one more picture from the Beartooth Highway, with one of the many glacial lakes that dot the horizons.

We continued down-hill as the views became less-mountainous. Mark slammed on his brakes to avoid hitting one of those friendly marmots that was crossing the Beartooth Highway.

As we headed downhill, we crossed the state line into Montana. This is our third trip into Montana this summer.

Our last stop on the highway was at the Rock Creek Vista pull-out. Again we could see the highway far below us as it zig-zagged down into the valley towards Red Lodge, Montana.

We were scheduled to leave Cody the next day, so this was our last mountain view for a while.

Again, the main wildlife pictures are of four-legged mammals that stay close to the ground, but love living at high altitude. 

We stopped in Red Lodge, Montana, for dinner, and then finished our loop drive back through Montana. It was a lovely 177-mile loop, and some would even say that it was "the most beautiful roadway in America." We would say that we were blessed to have wandered through another of God's wonders!