Day 23 – A Surprising Drive

Heading west from the Black Hills we chose to drive on Highway 16 through the southern portion of the Bighorn Federal Wilderness. Although late in the season, there were still a few Forest Service campgrounds open. We stayed at one situated along the pretty little creek, Wolf Creek. Surprisingly, for such a small stream, our neighboring campers had caught several trout!





The next day we continued over the pass. It was a pretty easy ascent to the summit with gradual inclines and turns. Then the pass flattened out for quite a few miles.

However, the descent opened up to a surprisingly rugged canyon with steep walls. Erosion had done it’s work cutting through huge layers of basalt and granite leaving some spectacular scenery as we descended. 





Towards the bottom of the canyon, there was a sandstone layer called the Ten-Sleep Formation. That formation was created by an inland sea millennia ago.

We stopped into a corner store/restaurant/coffee shop in the cute town of Ten-Sleep. The name comes from the location ten days travel from one major Lakota trading camp to the north and a second trading camp to the south which was also ten days travel. We picked up a blended latte… made with a big scoop of ice cream! Yum! Starbucks better watch out for lattes made at Crazy Sally’s corner store.


As an additional surprise, there is a Wild Horse Preserve west of the Big Horn Mountains. There are supposed to be about 140 wild horses who live on the preserve. Luckily, we were actually able to see one band of the horses from the highway.

Yee haw!

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