Senior Outing to the Bighorns

The trip

Two of my friends and I deceided to do one last stunt together before we parted ways and went to college. Paul (rocker paully, check him out) was mostly our "guide" since he was the only person experinced in the Bighorns.

Wyoming is a long drive in a 3 seater pickup, but we made it fun. About eight hours later we made it to our first destination the Tounge River Cave.

Tongue River Cave

We got a map from the ranger station in Sheridan. The cave is only a short drive from Sheridan, Wyoming unless you get stuck be hind the road grader..

When we finally got there, it was a short hike to the cave entrance. At first there is a lot of graffiti. We got off track from the beginning. The trail kind of circles down into a pit. At first we thought we had to cross it. Once you're in, the rooms are fairly big. Then comes the first belly crawl. I fit into it with a backpack on so there is plenty of room. It is also about six feet wide. The second crawl is a little smaller and longer. It goes for about 200 feet, and I had to take my pack off. After the crawls, the cave just twists and turns over a stream. If you don't mind getting wet, you can just walk through. We deceided to go over and shimmy our way. The route gets a bit technical but not that much of a problem.

The next difficulty came at a waterfall. Brian and I fell a bit behind Paul. We took a wrong turn and ended up above a small waterfall. We couldn't see Paul's light and though he went down it and around the corner. We yelled for him, but the rushing water was very loud. Brian was about to jump down on two inches of loose rock before I stopped him. I backtracked a few feet and saw light. The trial went up a few boulders that we failed to see. It was even marked with pink tape. Follow the pink tape!

After that pass, we entered the boulder room. This is where our trip ended. The room is very high and obviously filled with boulders. After that point the cave gets a bit more technical, and ropes would be helpful. We had to hurry back in order to set up camp at Cofeen Park.

Next summer we want to go back and finish the cave. There are many more attractions awaiting. There is a Sand Room, some deep pits, and a large waterfall. I can't wait.

Beware: the sunlight can hit you pretty hard when you pop out.

Cofeen Park to Lost Wilderness Lake

We made it to Cofeen Park and set up a makeshift camp. It was pretty cramped with three people. I won't elaborate. In the morning we started up to Lost Wilderness Lake. There is a trailhead at the end of the park. We didn't stay on the trail very long before we started to bushwack our way up. Once we left the treeline, a long line of boulder hopping awaited us. This was all made easy by the fresh rasberries we found growing. We probably stayed there and at for about 30 minutes.

Once we were filled up, we continued hiking. We passed a few smaller lakes with a few gold panning stops, and then finally reached our destination. This is where we spent most of our day fishing, panning, and swimming. The fishing was good other than we really didn't catch anything. Paul and I both hooked some cutthroats. Paul's got away, and my line broke as I was pulling it out of the water. We were also unsuccessful at panning gold. Swimming was breathtakingly cold. We packed up some goggles. You can see a long ways in the lake if you can hadle the cold.

After about four hours, we deceided to head up and around the saddle above the lake. On the way down we ran into a quartz vein and followed that for a bit. We took some soil samples to pan out. Nothing again.

We kind of got lost on the way back. We followed a different drainage and ended up doing a lot of bushwacking for a long time. We came out at a pretty popular lake and connected with the trail.

Cloud Peak and Bomber Mountain

We started our pack at Bald Ridge. The road is very nasty to get there. The Bald Ridge route saved us a few miles of trail hiking to our destination of Misty Moon lake. The beginning is very "bald." You can see the truck from miles away.

Once we reached the trees, very beautiful lakes awaited us. We packed in a few more miles to Misty Moon Lake. Many people already set up camp around the lake. We found a very protected spot.

During the night a small buck kept pestering us. He was interested in our empty food containers that we left out. The next morning we set out early for Cloud Peak. On the way up we met this guy running. We exchanged greetings. We met again on the way down. He made it up in an outrageous time. Very crazy guy. 2:58 from the West Tensleep trailhead. We made it up in 3 hours from Misty Moon Lake.

Bomber Mountain

After the Cloud Peak climb, we got up early to climb Bomber Mountain. The place got its name from a B-17 that crashed into its side. The entire crew perished. There are bits and pieces of the plane scattered on the ridge. The place can be hard to find. We luckily met some people heading up at the same time who showed us exactly where to go. After spending a few minutes taking pictures and searching for all the bits and pieces of the plane, we headed up to the top.

We struggled to find the top. We first overshot, and then undershot. We were fooled by a flag flying at the top of the second point. It said to vote for somebody. Being exhausted still from the day before, Brian and I deceided to sit at the top of the second point and eat lunch while Paul tried continued on to sign the register.

We met up with Paul again to make the decent. After we made it down, we took a short break and then packed up camp. The day was very long. Bald Ridge is a real morale killer. We could see the pickup from miles away but seem to not make any progress to it. Finally totally exhausted, we finished our adventure except for a few more miles of very poor roads.

The trip was a great way to finish off our last high school summer. From there its college. There are already plans in motion to return.

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