Wind River Canyon

July 14th

Left Curt Gowdy St Park today after several days of relaxing at Crystal Reservoir and hiking the canyons and Hidden Falls. The winds of Wyoming pushed us up to Laramie where we saw country, via hwy 210, that we had not seen before; beautiful green rolling hills and granite, rounded rocks so different from the stark, red, jagged rocks of Abiquiu.

We ventured East on I-80 from Laramie to Rawlins, then North on hwy 287 to Sweet Water and through Riverton & Shoshoni and finally to the Wind River Canyon where we spent the night. Somewhere just before Riverton on hwy 135 we encountered our first 9% grade down to the valley floor – no prob (it was only 2 miles long!) Coming over Wolf Creek Pass was a 7.5% grade but that was up ‘n’ down the pass and 11 miles long on each side!

We arrived at the Upper Wind River Canyon Campground around 4:30pm where there is no electricity so now we will see how long our batteries last. It’s a good test for the batteries (and us, to see if we still remember how to conserve energy). Up with the sun and to bed with the sunset.

Dinner was enjoyed beside the river watching black birds bathe in the river.

We saw several black ducks flying right above the water and one Mallard floating down stream (it’s weird that the river flows North here). There were also a few seagulls that seemed out of place along the river. The wind picked up and the clouds darkened with thunder sounding off in the distance. We were bound and determined to eat our dinner by the river (after all, we paid for a site right by the river!) come wind, rain or thunderstorms! I got up at one point to take a picture, and my chair almost blew into the water, but we STAYED till WE felt like we had had enough. This is a beautiful site with mature cottonwoods, green grass (that the host actually waters), and the Wind River: what more could one wish for (electricity…)? At 8:00pm the sun had settled behind the marvelous rocks and dusk is slowly turning to darkness. The rains never materialized and the winds have lost their gusto, leaving only the white noise of the traffic on hwy 20 to lull us to sleep. Nighty, night!

After getting in bed and still feeling not quite tired enough to fall asleep, we got up around 9:00pm and went outside to have a campfire: the evening was gorgeous under a million stars, with the soft sound of the river soothing us in the background.