August 31, 2024
Day 13: Cows in the Haze
Distance: 132km
Climbing: 1051m
The last few days have been in some of the most vast and uninhabited places in the lower 48 and yet there’s been a real lack of options to spend the night. There have been a few but rarely lining up with our distance goals - we really don‘t want to stop short. This has meant that both yesterday and today we’ve had to push on a bit further than we’d like, but of course it can’t always line up perfectly. As we’re in ranch country here rather than popular recreation or camping areas we’ve mostly been relying on “informal” campgrounds. Places that others have identified as legal (public lands) to camp on, but generally nothing more than that. No picnic bench, no easy water supply, no facilities, no places to store food like bear boxes.
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Today we decided to target one of these informal sites at a distance of 125km from our start. Unfortunately, when we got there it was too informal even for us: cow patties everywhere, deep cow prints hardened into the mud, scummy stream, etc. Fortunately, the map showed another site 5km further. It was better, but only by comparison. We made do and cooked and set up camp.
Earlier in the day we did have one very nice stretch descending through a rocky canyon with a nice river and some interesting wildlife: bird nests made of mud against some of the cliffs (cliff swallows, I think), a herd of what we later learned were pronghorns, a bald eagle, and of course cows and horses.
The forest fire smoke made some of the more desolate stretches even more desolate unfortunately. It’s not so thick that we’re really noticing it other than with the vast distances around here (“big sky country”) it makes scenery just taper off and fade away.
We’ll touch Idaho tomorrow and Wyoming the following day.
Today's ride: 132 km (82 miles)
Total: 1,487 km (923 miles)
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