Another one of those places that we've driven by while traveling through Wyoming and wanted to spend time exploring is Buffalo and the surrounding Big Horn Mountains. Buffalo is a charming town with roots in the old west, and the town works hard to keep the look of the 1800s. The downtown area is small but busy with shops and restaurants.
Our first trip into the Big Horn Mountains was to Crazy Woman Canyon. It isn't known who the crazy woman was, but I'm sure we all have someone in our families who we think would qualify. We started at the high end and worked our way down the winding, rough gravel and rock road. Here's some of the scenery:
The next day we went further up into the mountains. The roads here travel over an area from 7000' to 9000' elevation, and the landscape varies from forest to large, open meadows. This is the view from one of the Forest Service campgrounds we visited:
Driving to the point as high as we could, we came across this fire lookout tower, closed for the season. The sign in the parking lot said "15 minutes easy walk to tower". At our age, there's nothing easy about a 15 minute walk at 9000' - especially if it's uphill. So we didn't.
Even at this altitude, there were streams that were still running:
And at 8500', Meadowlark Lake probably is a bit cool to go swimming in:
We were, as always, looking for wildlife, especially moose. Unfortunately, it was hunting season for moose and elk and they were nowhere to be seen. But being in these mountains reminded us of the last time we were here, in the northern section during the spring, when it was too early in the year for the willows to turn green. As a result, moose where grazing in the meadows. We saw this young bull grazing, and because their legs are too long for them to bend over and graze, they get on their knees. As with me, it was the getting back up that was difficult to watch:
We're heading for Montana and some new places to visit. We'll be back soon!
