July 23- 25, 2023 – Dubois, WY

We left Lander on Sunday morning for a short drive to Dubois where we are staying at the Solitude RV Park.  This park is set in the badlands outside of Dubois and has 19 very large sites.  There is no office and no amenities like restrooms, but each site has full hook-ups, a picnic table, and a fire ring.   Our site sits by itself, and we have great views. After getting set up we stopped to say hello to our friends, Ann and Louise at The Big Wind River Float Trips and Fly-Fishing Store where they work.

We then drove to an overlook where we had great views of Dubois and the beautiful mountains to the west.

And a wonderful red canyon.

We met Ann and Louise for dinner at the Cowboy Cafe in downtown Dubois.  Ann, Louise and Rex posing between our 2 Jeeps.   

It was great catching up with our friends and the food was great, especially the pie ala mode.

Monday Ann and Louise took us to see the Dinwoody Petroglyphs.  This site is on the Wind River Indian Reservation and can only be accessed with a permit.  We are fortunate that Ann and Louise have permits through their work at Big Wind River Float Trips and Fly Fishing.  

When you hike up close to the cliff you can see a number of great petroglyphs.

Unfortunately, some idiots decided it was great fun to shoot holes in some of the beautiful petroglyphs.

     Thankfully, most of them are undamaged.

We drove past this beautiful ranch on lower Dinwoody Lake.  The storm brewing in the background tells us we should be heading back to Dubois.

Our last stop on the reservation was on the Wind River at a rafting take-out point.  The sky is really getting menacing but, luckily the storm went to the East of us, and we only got sprinkled on.

We also stopped at the Dubois Fish Hatchery - the trout were sorted by size in various tanks.

After dropping Tacking off at the motorhome, we stopped at the Rustic Pine Tavern for drinks with Ann and Louise.  Then we all decided to go next door to the Cowboy Cafe and have pie and ice cream for dinner. There was a waiting line at the cafe, so we got our pie and ice cream to-go and took them to the park.  We thank Ann and Louise for a great and enjoyable day.

 

Tuesday, Ann and Louise took us to The Geyser and Geyser Creek.

The Geyser is an extinct geyser just above Geyser Creek.  Our first view of The Geyser from the parking area.  It was a short hike to The Geyser.

Looking down into The Geyser and the pool at the bottom.  If you are brave enough the rope is to help you climb down to the pool.

The pool at the bottom is a beautiful turquoise.

                                          Rex couldn’t resist climbing down to the pool.

         

 

Rex sat on a ledge above the water.

He couldn’t get down to the water but took this picture from where he was sitting.

Rex made it back out of The Geyser and we are standing at the top.

We hiked a trail that went down to Geyser Creek.  On the other side of the creek were remnants of a flume.  Immigrants from Scandinavia worked in the area from 1914-1946, hand hewing more than 10 million railroad ties.  These workers were known as “tie hacks”.  By the 1920s, Dubois had become the largest tie-hack center in the US.  The tie hacks felled the trees, removed the limbs, and cut the logs into 8-foot lengths.  During the spring snowmelt, the logs were sent down to the Wind River through narrow hand-cut wooden channels called flumes.  At the Wind River, loggers would ride the floating logs and pole them along to prevent logjams.  At Riverton, the logs were loaded onto railroad cars.

Geyser Creek was beautiful with the sun shining on the water.

              We found this beautiful Sago Lily along the trail.

Tacky getting a drink after hiking down to the creek.

 The views were beautiful in every direction.

The red barn in the distance is where the Clydesdales that Wells Fargo use to pull their stagecoaches are raised.

After hiking back up to the parking lot, we left The Geyser and drove on a 4-wheel drive road towards Union Pass.  The ruins of a cabin were next to the road.

The wildflowers were beautiful!

We did not go to the top of Union Pass but the drive was beautiful.  Tacky slept through most of the very rough and bumpy drive.  We still have a blue tarp over the back window but will get it fixed on Thursday.

When we got back to Dubois, we dropped Tacky off at the motorhome and met Ann and Louise for drinks and pizza.  Another great day in this beautiful area.