Sitting Bull Campground, Bighorn Mountains

Tuesday September 15, 2015   day 49   Bighorn National Forest, Sitting Bull Campground, site 11

266 towing miles

 Left Baker’s Hole in the rain at 07:30.  We cut through Yellowstone Park from the West Entrance to the East Entrance.  That meant going to Madison Junction, then left to Norris Junction, then right to Canyon Junction, then right through the Hayden Valley to Fishing Bridge, then left along the East Entrance Road 26 miles along the southern edge of Yellowstone Lake to the East Entrance.  I had not been on the East Entrance Road since 1978 when I passed through on my way to Michigan from San Francisco.  It was a very beautiful ride.  We passed through a lot of the burned area we saw from across Yellowstone Lake in 2011.  We could see the flames from Lake Lodge.   At the park boundary, you enter the Shoshone National Forest and the highway becomes US-16.  It is a Wyoming scenic highway all the way to Sheridan.  It crosses the Bighorn Mountains.

 

 

Yellowstone Lake on a gloomy day.

 

Burned trees along Yellowstone Lake.

 

More burned trees from 2011 fire.

US-16 follows the North Fork of the Shoshone River all the way to Cody, WY.  Along the way, are about six national forest campgrounds that we checked out on the way.  They were all on the river.  Some were very nice and some not so nice and some were closed for the season.  Marsha made notes in her notebook as she always does.

 

Shoshone River from one of the campgrounds along US-16.

From Cody we headed to Greybull.  This was a boring drive over rolling, flat, dry rangeland.  From Greybull we worked our way towards the town of Ten Sleep (yes, that’s its name).  This part was very scenic because we were now entering the Bighorns.  At Ten Sleep, we climbed and climbed all the way to our campground.  Sitting Bull campground was at 8,600 ft., the highest elevation campground we stayed at the whole trip.  A close second was Hahn’s Peak in Colorado at 8,400 ft.

 

Lots of rock formations along here.

 

More Rocks.

 

Rocks and the Shoshone River.

 

Rocks and Shoshone River.

 

Truck and trailer at scenic pull off.

 

Tunnel next to Shoshone Reservoir.

 

Passing through small town, mule deer eating bushes.

Sitting Bull Campground was very well kept.  Many of the sites bordered on a meadow where wildlife viewing would be easy.  It was a very nice campground and I would consider it in the future. 

 

Sitting Bull Campground, site 11.

 

The sign is self explanatory.

 

 

 

 

I made a fire for our cocktail hour but it kept raining off and on.  I put the awning out and we kept going back and forth from sitting at the fire, then moving them under the awning, then back to the fire, etc.  Cooked baked potato and some sizzlers on the grill in between rain drops. 

 Another fiberglass trailer is called the Escape, made in Chilliwack, B.C.  These are considered upscale in the fiberglass trailer industry.  There was one a few sites down from us and they came over our trailer to see what an Oliver looked like.  We did the same because we had not seen an Escape before.  The Escape was 19 ft. vs our 23.5 ft.  But was bigger than the 17 ft. Casita we had.  However, the Escape looked smaller and more crowded than our Casita did. 

 The Escape people told us that there was a moose and calf across the meadow earlier, but we didn’t see it.  I wish they had told us.

 At sunset, we took some great pictures of the mountains across the meadow.

 

We stayed connected but put the hitch jack and stabilizers down.  It makes it easier for an early getaway.  We have about 500 miles to go tomorrow.