AWESOME TRIP REPORT-Big Horn Mtns

“WOW! What a trip! I'll try to be brief, so as to eliminate bordom on your part......

My wife and I, our 3 boys,(4,8,&10) and buckshot the dalmation set out from arkansas and arrived in Casper WY 2 days later(we stayed overnight in a hotel half way). Garfum and his family put us up for the night & the next day we set out for the Big Horn Mountains. Garfum had an attack of the black screamers the night before & we were worried that he wouldnt make the hike but he pulled out of it at the last minute. It took alot a guts......pardon the pun. We arrived at "base camp", Upper Paint Rock campground around dark time and set up camp, cooked dinner and crashed. it was about a 25 mile dirt road trek to the campground from the highway. Very beautiful rolling mountain meadows that were hidden by the darkness.


We woke up the next morning and headed out on the Edleman pass trail, headed for Emerald lake. Our gracious and brave wives stayed at day camp with our 4 year olds(both couples have a 4 year old) because we felt it was too long for the little tikes to hike. It was hot and sunny as we headed out through the tundra. At first,my boys(only the 8 & 10 yr old went) were lookin pretty bad, we made a few adjustments and after several miles they started to get interested more in the scenery than the pain. We stopped for lunch by a good stream where I cut the H3LL outta my thumb. it was so bad my brains were hanging out! finally stopped the bleeding with super glue and we were off. a banged it on something awhile later & busted it open again & again but it was ok. we wondered through these long meadows, up through a valley. we found out buckshot was a cow dog when he stampeded about a hundred head out of our way and back behind us, GOOD PUP! when we started climbling more and more trees were appearing. it was beautiful! we stopped alot, it was really quite a strenuous(sp?) climb. It was hard to breath for us Arkies. we saw trout in small streams along the way and finally got to the top, Emerald lake. WHat a stunning sight. Didnt have too much time to enjoy the view because a tremendous thunderstorm had been building all day over the mountain & we could tell it was time to set up the tents, QUICK! (the boys had a quick snowball fight)no sooner than we were set up alll hell broke loose! we were literally IN the storm & it was an a$$-kicker! luckily we had good tents that held up well. cooked dinner in the vestibule & passed out from exaustion. I woke up around 4 am to pee & was stunned by the most amazing display of stars i have ever seen. it seemed there were more points of light than the darkness between them all. the big dipper looked 4 times bigger than i have ever seen. it was truely awesome. a spiritual experience that made me feel fortunate, and happy to be alive & in this wonderful place. we saw one solo hiker that whole day....weird bill. we had met him the day before when i gave him some iodine pills and he gave us some gas(we had slight miscalculation, lol)

woke up on day two to a perfect morning(prolly about 55 degrees and rising fast) ate breakfast, repacked all our gear and headed W-NW to shell lake. what a great day! scene after scene of spectacular beauty. lots of lakes and following shell creek through the valley. we arrived at shell with the same problem as the day before.....STORM TIME! We strategically placed our tents in an awesome grove of evergreens, close enough to hear shell creek running and set up shop just as a hail storm cut loose! garfum jr had brought a tarp & we set it up in the hail, so we could hang out under it instead of going into our caves. it hailed and haild(pea to nickle size) then finally subsided....the storm, in an appearant attempt to show up how insignificant we were, backed up ...waited 20 minutes...then hit us again! we rode it out just fine and it finally stopped. it wasnt' nearly as windy as the night before up on the mountain. when the storm passed we still had plenty of daylight left so that could only mean one one thing......TROUT FISHING! we tore em up! Garfum was murdering them with night crawlers & they couldnt resist my brown rooster tail either! cleaned em & took them back to camp , and threw them on ice(piled up hail) till dinner time. that was some goood grub, & i done even like fish that much. finally darkness fell upon us & the boys crashed & garfum & i had a whiskey sour...MMMmmMMMm. (forgot my cigars in the car) we only saw a group of 3 fisherman that day, who had day hiked in and HAD to have gotten hammered by that hail storm.

day 3 held a longer hike for us, continueing down the shell creek valley to shell resevoir & adalade lake. it was a long day of more beautiful scenery long winding streams through marshy fields. including the side trip to explore dutch oven pass a little(snicker), we prolly did 7-8 miles that day. we saw zero people that whole day & ended up camping about a mile under adalade. great spot in heavy trees. had a great dinner & a cold totty(whiskey sour) and a great night sleep. it rained during the night, but I never even knew till the morning.

day four held a lighter day for us and we got off to a great start....after an encounter with a doe mule deer and a solo hippie hiker jonesin for one of my smokes.... and really got to cooking with our hiking pace. its alot easier to haul booty in the heavy trees cuz you can't see very far through them & after awhile it's just trees trees trees. buckshot found a long bone of some kind during a pack-off break & was loving life....we had planned to have a little time to fish, towards the end, in shell creek.....and fish we did. just for fun this time....we fished for a couple hours. caught brookies, rainbows & browns. great fishin! i'd never go hungry there. no monsters but strat JR jr had the largest, a confirmed 13 incher. when the time came we strolled on down the last mile or two to ranger creek where our wives & 4 year ods were waiting for us. they had stayed at upper paint rock that whole time and they drove us back and fed us meat and beer! we got some pictures of a bull moose on the back to basecamp. WOW!

the next mornin we were off sadly, back to casper (after i caught 8 brookies out of upper paintrock lake)to stay at the garfum household for the night. went out for mexican food that night & took off back for arkansas the next day.

it was a great trip & a great hike! i HIGHLY recomend it to anyone! the scenery looks simular to that in the montanapalooza pics. forgot my trout in garfum's freezer...hope they taste good ! catching them is way funner than eating them!


We got lots of pics and will post them soon if anyone is interested.”

“Nice report. Can you say Wyomingpalooza? Maybe after the pics. The Wind River Range is Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet!”

“That was an awesome trip report. Sounds like an awesome trip too! (except the wives having to car camp while the boys go off and have a grand time.) Mother Nature really let you have it! Hmmmmmmmm!! (HeeHeeHee)

Looking forward to the pics.”

“lol tango....i was harder than we thought it was gonna be, couldnt see draggin them boys through 4 days of it. they prolly would have done fine, it was a very hard desicion.

didjfan....yes i can say that! we are lookin at wind river for the next trip up there. i've heard lots of great things about it!”

“Stratdewd, you weren't lying when you said awesome trip report. The area you went to sounds FANTASTIC, you're descriptions were great, your words painted a nice picture. Glad you and everyone had a great time! :-)”

“stratdewd: great report, bring on those pics! We drove by the bighorns on the way to montana. It looked like some pretty awesome country.”

“Sounds like a perfectly wonderful time. I can't wait to see the pics!”

“Would love to see the pics also!”

“Stratdewd, if you ain't got the hint yet, post the pics.

BAMA”

“uhhhhh....now what?

i tried that webshots thing and it says only 5 a day unless i pay $20!



hellp”

“I too would also like to see the pictures!

I know next year I am planning 2 week long trips for the club out west in Montana & Wyoming.

8D”

“The Winds are ugly, crowded, bug infested, dirty, hot, stinky, terrible places to be. Never, ever go there, never ever ever tell anyone else to go there.”

“Strat, I just put up 72 with no problem. Did you actually join up and download their software? It's free. Just follow the steps.

You also need to download Photo Assistant. They walk you right through that as well.

Good luck . . . anxious to see the photos.”

“What a cool trip. It's alway great when expectations are exceeded and nothing major goes wrong.

I did get very sick the night before and day the trip was supposed to start, causing a 8 to 10 hour delay in leaving Casper. I was feelin fine the next day however so it was GAME ON!

30 minutes into the hike things were not lookin to good for strat's youngest but a quick break with some pack fit adjustments helped a lot. The next 30 minutes brought more concern from the youngest, we got a late start(typical) so it was nearly lunch time and we stopped accordingly. After eating and redistributing the load from the 8 yr olds pack it was back onna trail with no worries.
We did run into cattle blocking the trail at several points. That was when we discovered that some dalmations are hearding dogs. It was cool watching buckshot the dalmation moving and turning about 100 cattle while wearing a full dogpack - he was luvin it.

As the day 1 climb started to get more diffucult, strat's youngest got more energy(again typical). At one point he said to me, as he waited for me to catch up, "yer walkin like a turtle", I let him know he'd get all his gear back to carry the next day.
We got hammered pretty hard by a thunderstorm that night, but no harm was done and everything was dry and ready the next morning. There was no wind the next morning and emerald lake was stunning at sunrise.

Now then - on to the "exploring" dutch oven pass trail on day three.

We were on the trail on the third morning and doing fine when we came upon a stack of rocks right in the middle of the trail - how strange - we all stepped over or around them, I did notice a stick about 20 yds to the right in another pile of rocks - how strange - on we went. Sure did seem like we were climbing a lot more than we should be, after about an hour we got out the GPS and compass and relized that the rocks and sticks were where our trail turned. Bonus Hiking! That was planned to be our longest day on the trail anyway so by camp that night we were all hurtin.
The forth days short hikin and long fishin made for a perfect end to a great trip - cool how fishin in an awsome trout stream makes yer feet hurt less.

Strat - thanks for making the long drive to Wyoming. The boys did great. Time to start planning the next one.”

“2,956 miles all told(including unintended detours) and i'd do it all over again!

HERE IT IS! PICS!

http://community.webshots.com/album/44721209xbXNaj



that's day one, somebody make me a link please?”

“here's day 2

http://community.webshots.com/album/44726375FSUmgg”

“nice string of fish there. Looks like the boys had a blast.”

“we all did....”

“waitin for garfum to send me the rest of the pics”

“http://community.webshots.com/album/44956328bgmnDg


day's 3 & 4 are now on here, i know you've all been waiting for them”

“thanks statdewd. between you and ajgoodkids on another site (he has twin 7 year olds), my seven year old is willing to give it a try.”

“pathdewd, no problem. if your kid is a little bit tough, it'll be no problem. i started my 1st two, and will start my 3rd at 6. i got them kids packs and load them about 1/4 of their bodyweight and they do fine. usually theres enough to keep them distracted. they were kinda whiney on this trip at first, we made some adjustments & gave them a pep talk & they were great the whole rest of the thime. i think another big factor was that the terrain started to get more interesting.....more trees n lakes n streams.”

“huh?”

“Maybe it was a short trip, Lizs!”

“OK, for everyone looking at this thread.. It was written back in 02 and I couldn't read it, so I posted a bogus message on it in the hopes it would free it up to be read. It worked. The problem is that now it is active and people are looking at it, but if you aren't set to ALL you won't see anything because it is three years old. That's all.”

“That was a fun trip.

I just saw Stratdewd last week in Arkansas. All is well with him and his clan - they just don't do internet at home anymore.”

“I'm going to the Cloud Peak Wilderness area in August Gar, I liked the trip report and can't wait to go. It seems almost everyone approaches that area from the north or west I am coming in from the east. No trails from that direction, should be fun.”

“You're a tricky one, SB. lol

Good to hear that stratdewd is OK, dang steenkin' 'publican and all!”