Matthew and Cassie's Big Climbing Trip.: Bighorn mountains and the Cloud Peaks Wilderness

After our whirlwind tour of a few of the highlights of South Dakota and parts of Wyoming, we were ready to stay put for a few days. We found the most amazing field of wildflowers with a great view of the Bighorn Mountains and have set up camp there.

This picture took hours just to setup and then the deer had to come around. Ok just kidding it wandered about 50 feet from the van while we were inside avoiding mosquitoes.

We are very close to Ten Sleep and a lot of great climbing, but since my elbow was bothering me from Veedawou, we decided to wait for a while to take on any more climbing. So, we've been hanging out in the wildflowers, going for hikes, watching the wildlife wander in and out of camp and making some great food. We've made homemade chocolate-chip cookies, bagels, pizza, and calzones in the solar oven. A new favorite food is felafels which were a resounding success.

According to the locals, the wildflowers are especially good this year due to the high snow pack. Someone from the forest service told us that at one point their snowpack was 1000% of normal. This also means that many of the hikes that you could normally do this time of year are still snowed in. We've still been able to find plenty of hikes to keep us busy though. Even over the 4th of July weekend, we were quite surprised to find that the trails weren't too busy, there were definitely people around, but nothing compared to what we are used to from easily accessible hikes in the Wasatch and the Uintas. We did two hikes, one was into the Cloud Peaks Wilderness to a bunch of lakes via the Circle Park trailhead, and another along a jeep road near that took us next to the 7 brothers lakes. We were unable to reach the lakes due to high runoff and a dicey stream crossing. Mojo was very energetic and enjoyed swimming after leopard frogs and trout which he was unable to catch.

While we have gone on a few great hikes, we've also done our share of lazing about in the flowers around camp just being amazed by the beauty all around us.

We're planning on heading over the mountains to Ten Sleep tomorrow and give this climbing thing a try again.